VR Maker – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

June 10, 2018

iStaging’s VR Maker App Is Now Google Street View Ready

Late last month iStaging announced a new feature for their virtual reality (VR) Marker app that brought the power of ARKit into play for use when making floor plans of locations. The applications for this feature would benefit estate agents, interior designers and event organizers offering a range of valuable capabilities. Now, iStaging have revealed that their VR Marker app is now Street View ready.

iStaging Street View

This new feature means that users can now effortlessly share their 360-degree panoramas capture within the app directly to Google Maps Street View with just one tap. This functionality means that users can easily create virtual tours for viewing on Google Maps Street View thanks to the affordable solution. The VR Maker app and included capture kit are already being used by thousands of real estate agents, photographers, designers and retailers around the global to digitize spaces and now, these can be shared to Google Map Street View with ease.

“Our customers have high quality standards, and we’ve worked hard on creating a capture solution that delivers on their expectations,” noted Johnny Lee, CEO of iStaging. “We’re humbled to see it recognized as Street View ready by Google”.

The VR Maker app is a spatial VR capture solution that enables users to take advantage of their mobile device to create immersive virtual tours within minutes using a fisheye lens and Rotator. The solution also includes an all-in-one virtual tour builder that can create real estate walkthroughs, digital stores, 360-degree previews of vehicles, and much more. With the addition of the Google Maps Street View support, iStaging have enabled a new workflow for users offering a new platform to share immersive 360-degree panoramas.

Google Cardboard can be leveraged as well, with iStaging LiveTour supporting unique web links that can be embedded onto any website allowing users to view the 360-degree panoramas in VR thanks to platform. These new features bring more to the iStaging ecosystem are a sure to offer a range of benefits to users as the product continues to develop.

As iStaging continue to bring new features to their VR Maker app, VRFocus will be sure to bring you all the latest so stay tuned for more.

May 30, 2018

Create Floor Plans with iStaging VR Maker

There are a number of professionals who would find the ability to quickly and easily create floor plans to be extremely useful. Estate agents, interior designers and event organisers would all no doubt find such a capability to be extremely valuable. For those users, the new feature added to iStaging’s VR Maker app might be of considerable interest.

The new VR Maker feature utilises Apple’s ARKit toolset to recognise spaces, such as walls and floors and can provide accurate measurements. By scanning each wall of a space, a floor plan can be produced quickly and easily.

Having an accurate floor plan means that estate agents can better advertise to prospective clients. Technical personnel can better judge where to install equipment, event organisers can estimate room capacity and interior designers can draw up ideas for furniture locations.

“The floor-plan feature is an important addition to our toolset,” noted iStaging CEO Johnny Lee. “Virtual tours and floor plans are two facets of the same experience and our real estate customers expect to be able to generate them all in one go.”

The feature is fully integrated into iStaging LiveTour, which allows users to capture 360-degree pictures of real estate, events or locations and convert them into VR tours. The app is compatible with cameras such as the Ricoh Theta S, Samsung Gear 360, Insta 360 and LG 360, among others. The floor plan produced using the app can be exported as an image or added in to a LiveTour.

The floor Plan feature is currently in Beta. To use, users will need to download the VR Maker app from the Apple App Store using an iPhone 6 or newer, which has the ARKit feature installed. They will then need to select a LiveTour to add a floor plan to, and begin scanning from a corner of the room.

To assist new users, iStaging have included a full guide on how to begin using the new feature on its website. For further news on new and innovative uses of AR technology, keep checking back with VRFocus.

February 26, 2018

iStaging’s VR Maker Integrates with Alibaba’s Tmall Platform

Last month iStaging Corp. unveiled VR Maker, an spatial capture solution enabling smartphone users to create immersive virtual tours quickly and easily. With Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2018 in full swing in Barcelona, Spain, iStaging has announced a new collaboration with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, integrating VR Maker with Alibaba’s Tmall platform.

VR Maker key art

In an effort to bridge the virtual and physical worlds, Tmall sellers can use iStaging’s VR Maker to digitize their physical stores in virtual reality (VR). Tmall sellers can then upload their VR content on Tmall and sync VR content on Tmall with search results based on the location and distance of their physical shops.

Being the platform giant that it is, Alibaba is looking to roll out this new idea to tens of thousands of stores, eventually turning them all towards VR. With easier access to this range of interactive content, the collaboration will help fuel the ever growing pace of VR growth in China, especially as Chinese consumers a more mobile focused.

During the MWC, iStaging will be demoing VR Maker and showcasing how it has been used by the retail and e-commerce industries. What makes iStaging’s offering unique is the seamless integration of its VR Maker with Alibaba’s services, providing users with a complete VR capturing solution.

VR Maker key art

iStaging isn’t just into VR, offering augmented reality (AR) solutions to support e-commerce and retail industries, enabling them to digitise real objects using AR or home users to design their own interiors by previewing furniture in their own homes in real time and at actual size.

As iStaging continues its VR and AR development, VRFocus will keep you updated on the latest announcements.

January 9, 2018

iStaging’s VR Maker Simplifies Spatial Capture and Content Sharing

iStaging Corp. has today unveiled VR Maker, an affordable spatial capture solution enabling any individual with a mobile device to create immersive virtual tours in minutes. A real estate retail-focused augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technology company based in Taipei, iStaging is aiming to ‘democratise’ virtual access to physical spaces by allowing anyone to create a VR rendition of their space with ease.

VR Maker key art

With the use of a fisheye lens and rotator, VR Maker condenses hours of capture and stitching work into minutes by automating significant areas of the process. The captured footage can then be customised via a PC-based editing suite, while the finished product can be shared online or stored locally on a smartphone and viewed in 360 degrees via a VR head-mounted display (HMD).

As iStaging’s flagship product, VR Maker is now available in over 180 countries and supports a number of multinational real estate firms in bringing renters and home buyers closer to the living spaces they want to explore.

iStaging CEO, Johnny Lee, notes, “While many existing AR and VR capture solutions rely on expensive services or costly third-party hardware, iStaging has focused on maximizing convenience and affordability by leveraging technology people already use: their mobile phones. For as little as $29 per month, real estate professionals can now capture, edit, and share immersive 8K iStaging LiveTours of properties with anyone in the world.”

While obviously targeted towards the real estate industry, iStaging also has further solutions for other commercial sectors planned. For example, an AR capture solution to empower existing e-commerce and physical retail stores through: the iStaging product digitisation suite quickly converts physical retail goods into digital items to help retailers through AR-driven product engagement.

VR Maker is available to download for iOS and Android devices now. As stated above, the VR Maker application is available for $29 USD per month, however those who register directly with iStaging will receive the 720 degree lens and rotator required for use free of charge. VRFocus will keep you updated with all the latest advancements in AR and VR targeted towards the real estate industry