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Canada-based ecommerce site Shopify has demonstrated an unexpected use of Apple’s RoomPlan API to clear a room before filling it with furniture via Apple AR.
Apple announced RoomPlan at WWDC 2022, but by itself this AR technology will not be an Apple app. Instead, RoomPlan is an API that developers can use to offer its features as part of their own apps.
It was expected that retailers could use the RoomPlan API to show customers how certain items, such as furniture, would look like in their home. Ikea has already has been doing this recently after Apple announced ARKit in 2017, but RoomPlan uses the newer LiDAR technology.
Now Shopify has demonstrated a way it can use the API within its own furniture store app. Besides showing people what a sofa by the window looks like, it can also clean the room so users can start with a clean slate.
In further tweets, Shopify’s Russ Maschmeyer calls the feature a “Space Eraser” and describes it as a “reset button.”
“Space Eraser models spaces in high-fidelity,” he continued, “capturing space-defining objects, their size, position, orientation…”
“Live pixel data is combined with LiDAR depth data to enable a lifelike digital twin of your room that can be superimposed with AR over your real space and then digitally edited,” said Maschmeyer. “With an empty room, shoppers can now swipe through room sets that use the orientation of existing furniture to automatically arrange themselves.”
Shopify’s demo is not a finished app and the company has not announced when it will ship.