The industry is finding new uses for VR every day, but the potential for architecture and design apps has always been obvious. TrueScale shows you why.
This new experience from Immersion, set to launch soon on both Viveport and Steam with HTC Vive support, is a compelling mix of interior design and just a little bit of EA’s The Sims. Rather than simply letting you walk around a pre-designed space, TrueScale allows you to design a room from within VR, picking from a long list of pre-determined assets. But the most intriguing thing about the app isn’t what you can place down, but how you place it.
TrueScale lets you experience your interior designs in real scale. Coming soon to @Viveport and @SteamVR ! @htcvive #vr #vive #design pic.twitter.com/FhPivk0oyF
— Immersion (@ImmersionVR) March 15, 2017
TrueScale starts out in a stylish office space in which you can design your floor space by dragging with a Vive controller. Once you’ve made a room to your liking, the floor and walls will appear as a miniature 3D model on the desk next to you. From there you can pluck assets from a virtual menu and set them down a little like you were making a train set. It makes quick placement simple and easy, but it’s when you need a little more precision that things get interesting.
The app essentially allows you to shrink down inside the space to see it at, yes, true scale. Doing so is a seemless experience with a single button press, and from there you can edit items you’ve already set down, or place new ones with better accuracy than you could up top. Imagine designing the kitchen exactly as you want it, and then sending it through to contractors to work on.
It’s a pretty compelling glimpse of what VR can do for interior design, though the office space also has us thinking that it could be great for mixed reality headsets like HoloLens, too.
