This is very cool! A feature I'd love to have (and would gladly pay for) is to be able to add multiple photos to one wall to test out different arrangements. We've been thinking about how to arrange our framed art on the walls, but it's hard to visualize what arrangement would look best as a "gallery wall" of art https://stylebyemilyhenderson.com/blog/how-to-make-a-gallery...
Hey all, wanted to share a new ARKit app I recently published. You can choose a photo from your gallery, specify its dimensions, and see how it'd look directly on your wall!
Inspiration for this project came when I was looking to buy artwork over the summer, but wasn't sure what size would look best on my wall. I made this so ideally you could preview how a piece of art would look on your wall before you buy it. Would love any feedback on it
This is off to a great start! A few initial UX suggestions:
- Most users are probably just looking to see how a single copy of something looks on their wall, so instead of subsequent taps adding subsequent copies, they should probably just move the existing one.
- My iPhone doesn’t have LiDAR, so it’s somewhat hit or miss whether ARKit hits the actual wall, or ends up a foot in front of it (or gets the angle wrong). Consider offering an adjustment mode to manually slide the artwork into place.
And now a product suggestion:
- Consider pitching an integration to Society6, one of the largest marketplaces for wall art. It would be a huge value add for customers to be able to view prints directly from creators’ catalogs with pre-filled sizes, and I’d imagine you could work something out that would support this project well into the future.
AR camera shots often have an uncanny valley appearance.
It would be cool if there were an option to have the initial simulated image ‘annealed’ with a generative adversarial network.
Maybe you could also partner with local frame builders (ask for 2% of sales or something) to send clients your way, since, so often, the frame has a large effect on the art’s aesthetic impact.
As someone who custom builds a lot of picture frames, the ability to add frame + mat ratio to the image would be great. Those can more than double the linear dimensions (4X+ on the area) and are a pain to properly size for the wall.
For example, something like:
+3" dark brown frame (for walnut, wood texture would be a plus)
+2" left/right; +2.5" top, +3" bottom white mat board (reveals are not usually uniform in custom work)
I currently spend a lot of time mocking up these ratios in Gimp before starting work, something that automates it and shows it on the wall would be amazing.
Adding depth would be a nice touch too if that's possible, stretched canvas can stick out 1.5" or more.
Great work though, I like it so far and might be able to use it to help my mockups a bit already.
I have a pretty extensive niche art collection at home, and this sort of thing would be really useful. If I could suggest one important addition...
It would be great if you could set a surrounding frame and matting. You could maybe offer a few different frame styles/colours, and let users access a colour picker to select the shade for the matting. Then you could project a "framed" piece of art on the wall with AR.
This would make it really easy to see how a new piece would look in context, alongside other artwork which has been professionally framed. It would save a lot of uncertainty before a visit to the framing shop :)
I like this and I bet eventually it will be standard practice for galleries to have something like this. There's a lot of money in the art world, and especially since the pandemic not everyone can travel to every show even if they could afford it!
So here's my business advice: make this a white-label app and try to license it to Gagosian et al.
Now for a massive feature suggestion, probably not possible with ARKit: I want to record a room, then arrange pictures in it "AR-style" when I am not in the room anymore.
Because it's much more common for me to be where the picture is, and wonder how it would look in my room, than to be in the room and have the picture not there. (I make and also collect art.)
Thanks, worked very simple and fast. Great that you published this for free on the app store.
One small feature request: it would be useful to change between metric/imperial measurements. I don't live in the US and don't now how long an inch is.
Great job! My ultimate (and totally unrealistic) wish list:
Multitouch dragging and resizing and rotating and pushing and pulling images. Really cool if it works seamlessly with camera motion and rotation too. So you can correct the size and depth of misplaced pictures easily.
(The dragging gesture currently does, hurrya! Now "just" make the resizing and twisting and pulling and pushing gestures work that way by following camera motion too! Yes it's tricky code but it'll be worth it and satisfying.)
Bump the edges of dragging and resizing pictures up against the corners of the room. And when picture edges bump together they push each other around, with 2d physics (or use 3d physics with gravity oriented so the wall is a flat or graded floor). So you can't drag a picture into an orthogonal wall, or make pictures on the same wall overlap, and the wall corners and picture frames have more physicality, so you can easily align multiple images along a corner.
Scroll all the pictures on the wall at once by dragging the background like a virtual desktop that clips to the corners of the room.
Full depth 3d frames, that you can look around and see the back of.
Hinged frames that you can open this way or that to reveal a hidden safe (that you can open by twisting the dial to see what's inside) or window (that you can see through in parallax to another outdoor photo (or 3d scene with dancing characters) you've placed outside in the distance, like the a-ha "Take On Me" music video door AR demo).
Flat screen TVs for walls, big deep retro monitors for desktops, and big wooden Magnivox Color Television consoles with rounded screens for floors.
Sometimes the reception cuts out and you have to fiddle with the antenna to get the picture back. In-app purchase of a cable tv subscription to fix all your bad reception problems once and for all.
Simulating a backlighted screen solves the "uncanny gap" lighting problem by being emissive like a TV, instead of reflective like a painting. Well you still have to light the frame itself, but ARKit will tell you the light direction estimate, and it's ok if your frames have dark and shadowy edges and bright specular highlights, since it's not the actual picture you're trying to look at, just a frame.
Save and exchange scenes online!
Map (load and save over the net) your sets of pictures on one individual flat wall surface to other people's flat walls in different rooms, instead of trying to map between the entire 3d rooms, which probably won't match in size and shape.
So I could have one wall mapped back-and-forth with one person's wall, and another wall mapped back-and-forth with another person's wall.
This is a real problem to solve, but the issue being in the physical world, it seems to me having rough prints of your photos* and temporarily sticking them at the candidate places would be a more effective solution.
The added advantage being to be able to look at those for longer time, at any moment of the day, and decide if after the fifth time you're already bored with that picture.
I don't like the name. I think it is awkward, and that "-ify"'ing everything will soon be an anachronism, like trend of the 2010's with restaurants and stores named "Noun & Noun".
That being said, it is a really clever application! I can't believe with all the big brains working on AR that no one came up with this until now. Nice!
EDIT: Not to say the author's brain isn't big, just saying that now that I've seen it, it seems obvious that it should exist, which is the mark of good technology.
I couldn’t get it to do anything besides select a photo. It showed the ar startup “move phone around” message. I tried Measure and that was working fine so I tried your app again. No luck. iPhone 12 mini (in case relevant)
Hmm interesting, does the "move phone around" message ever go away? I'm working on tuning it still, but you might have to walk around and pan the camera around the area a bit more (looking into optimizing this more in coming updates). It's currently setup so ARKit can calibrate itself during that time, and that message should disappear once it's done calibrating. Once it's ready, a message like "Tap on the wall to see your artwork" should show up
Speaking about something I needed yesterday, how about an app that lets you brick up or nail plywood to windows and doors?
Zombie Proof your home safely from inside!
Also a graffiti spray paint tool for vandalizing, with in app purchases for paint cans, bricks, cement, trowels, plywood, crowbars, nails, hammers, and nail guns.
Of course then you'd have to write a zombie simulator to break down your doors and windows, and knock holes in your walls that you have to patch up.
To that end, SimFreaks and SimSlice just released this tour-de-force indie Zombie Sims Expansion Pack for The Sims 1 -- check out the nice rusty corrugated walls and zombie movie posters, and interactive chum barrels:
> Show HN: Use your iPhone's camera to see any photo on your wall
The wording of this headline is not good. The concept he means to convey is that you can use AR to project any photo you have in your library, onto your wall using your iPhone + camera, and see it in a virtual picture frame.
The headline makes it sound like somehow your iPhone has magical access to see the photos on your wall in your house.
Hey there- that's a good point. My decision for the iOS 15 requirement was because some new API's were introduced that made development a bit easier, but I think I can add support to iOS 14 with a bit of TLC. I'll look into that, appreciate the feedback!
Apple very very rarely backports new developer APIs, as such it's normal that most apps will rapidly raise their minimum iOS requirement to make use of them.
This is unlike Android, where you still see a lot of apps with a minimum requirement of Android 6.
All this to just say that it's much much worse to be on an non-updated Apple device than an Android one. Your apps won't take too long to stop getting updates.
rodonn|4 years ago
luxurytent|4 years ago
hitmyapi|4 years ago
Inspiration for this project came when I was looking to buy artwork over the summer, but wasn't sure what size would look best on my wall. I made this so ideally you could preview how a piece of art would look on your wall before you buy it. Would love any feedback on it
mortenjorck|4 years ago
- Most users are probably just looking to see how a single copy of something looks on their wall, so instead of subsequent taps adding subsequent copies, they should probably just move the existing one.
- My iPhone doesn’t have LiDAR, so it’s somewhat hit or miss whether ARKit hits the actual wall, or ends up a foot in front of it (or gets the angle wrong). Consider offering an adjustment mode to manually slide the artwork into place.
And now a product suggestion:
- Consider pitching an integration to Society6, one of the largest marketplaces for wall art. It would be a huge value add for customers to be able to view prints directly from creators’ catalogs with pre-filled sizes, and I’d imagine you could work something out that would support this project well into the future.
mensetmanusman|4 years ago
It would be cool if there were an option to have the initial simulated image ‘annealed’ with a generative adversarial network.
Maybe you could also partner with local frame builders (ask for 2% of sales or something) to send clients your way, since, so often, the frame has a large effect on the art’s aesthetic impact.
scrooched_moose|4 years ago
For example, something like:
+3" dark brown frame (for walnut, wood texture would be a plus)
+2" left/right; +2.5" top, +3" bottom white mat board (reveals are not usually uniform in custom work)
I currently spend a lot of time mocking up these ratios in Gimp before starting work, something that automates it and shows it on the wall would be amazing.
Adding depth would be a nice touch too if that's possible, stretched canvas can stick out 1.5" or more.
Great work though, I like it so far and might be able to use it to help my mockups a bit already.
jw1224|4 years ago
I have a pretty extensive niche art collection at home, and this sort of thing would be really useful. If I could suggest one important addition...
It would be great if you could set a surrounding frame and matting. You could maybe offer a few different frame styles/colours, and let users access a colour picker to select the shade for the matting. Then you could project a "framed" piece of art on the wall with AR.
This would make it really easy to see how a new piece would look in context, alongside other artwork which has been professionally framed. It would save a lot of uncertainty before a visit to the framing shop :)
biztos|4 years ago
So here's my business advice: make this a white-label app and try to license it to Gagosian et al.
Now for a massive feature suggestion, probably not possible with ARKit: I want to record a room, then arrange pictures in it "AR-style" when I am not in the room anymore.
Because it's much more common for me to be where the picture is, and wonder how it would look in my room, than to be in the room and have the picture not there. (I make and also collect art.)
huskyr|4 years ago
One small feature request: it would be useful to change between metric/imperial measurements. I don't live in the US and don't now how long an inch is.
sci_prog|4 years ago
2muchcoffeeman|4 years ago
DonHopkins|4 years ago
Multitouch dragging and resizing and rotating and pushing and pulling images. Really cool if it works seamlessly with camera motion and rotation too. So you can correct the size and depth of misplaced pictures easily.
(The dragging gesture currently does, hurrya! Now "just" make the resizing and twisting and pulling and pushing gestures work that way by following camera motion too! Yes it's tricky code but it'll be worth it and satisfying.)
Bump the edges of dragging and resizing pictures up against the corners of the room. And when picture edges bump together they push each other around, with 2d physics (or use 3d physics with gravity oriented so the wall is a flat or graded floor). So you can't drag a picture into an orthogonal wall, or make pictures on the same wall overlap, and the wall corners and picture frames have more physicality, so you can easily align multiple images along a corner.
Scroll all the pictures on the wall at once by dragging the background like a virtual desktop that clips to the corners of the room.
Full depth 3d frames, that you can look around and see the back of.
Hinged frames that you can open this way or that to reveal a hidden safe (that you can open by twisting the dial to see what's inside) or window (that you can see through in parallax to another outdoor photo (or 3d scene with dancing characters) you've placed outside in the distance, like the a-ha "Take On Me" music video door AR demo).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914
https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/27/someone-made-the-take-on-m...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaEeRoBY8jY
Flat screen TVs for walls, big deep retro monitors for desktops, and big wooden Magnivox Color Television consoles with rounded screens for floors.
Sometimes the reception cuts out and you have to fiddle with the antenna to get the picture back. In-app purchase of a cable tv subscription to fix all your bad reception problems once and for all.
Simulating a backlighted screen solves the "uncanny gap" lighting problem by being emissive like a TV, instead of reflective like a painting. Well you still have to light the frame itself, but ARKit will tell you the light direction estimate, and it's ok if your frames have dark and shadowy edges and bright specular highlights, since it's not the actual picture you're trying to look at, just a frame.
Save and exchange scenes online!
Map (load and save over the net) your sets of pictures on one individual flat wall surface to other people's flat walls in different rooms, instead of trying to map between the entire 3d rooms, which probably won't match in size and shape.
So I could have one wall mapped back-and-forth with one person's wall, and another wall mapped back-and-forth with another person's wall.
Then stream live video in the pictures!
makeitdouble|4 years ago
This is a real problem to solve, but the issue being in the physical world, it seems to me having rough prints of your photos* and temporarily sticking them at the candidate places would be a more effective solution.
The added advantage being to be able to look at those for longer time, at any moment of the day, and decide if after the fifth time you're already bored with that picture.
* Stiching might be needed depending on the size
informationslob|4 years ago
SavantIdiot|4 years ago
That being said, it is a really clever application! I can't believe with all the big brains working on AR that no one came up with this until now. Nice!
EDIT: Not to say the author's brain isn't big, just saying that now that I've seen it, it seems obvious that it should exist, which is the mark of good technology.
ajimix|4 years ago
ChuckMcM|4 years ago
geocar|4 years ago
hitmyapi|4 years ago
jasonleowsg|4 years ago
AR for anything that we hang on our walls. TVs, ornaments, memorabilia, posters, or even multiple pictures
thunderbong|4 years ago
artur_makly|4 years ago
the_gipsy|4 years ago
enlyth|4 years ago
DonHopkins|4 years ago
Zombie Proof your home safely from inside!
Also a graffiti spray paint tool for vandalizing, with in app purchases for paint cans, bricks, cement, trowels, plywood, crowbars, nails, hammers, and nail guns.
Of course then you'd have to write a zombie simulator to break down your doors and windows, and knock holes in your walls that you have to patch up.
To that end, SimFreaks and SimSlice just released this tour-de-force indie Zombie Sims Expansion Pack for The Sims 1 -- check out the nice rusty corrugated walls and zombie movie posters, and interactive chum barrels:
https://zombiesims.com/gallery.html
leewenjie|4 years ago
havkd|4 years ago
busia|4 years ago
amelius|4 years ago
ngoel36|4 years ago
butuzov|4 years ago
supernova87a|4 years ago
The wording of this headline is not good. The concept he means to convey is that you can use AR to project any photo you have in your library, onto your wall using your iPhone + camera, and see it in a virtual picture frame.
The headline makes it sound like somehow your iPhone has magical access to see the photos on your wall in your house.
addandsubtract|4 years ago
unknown|4 years ago
[deleted]
good8675309|4 years ago
[deleted]
djrogers|4 years ago
hitmyapi|4 years ago
Daedren|4 years ago
This is unlike Android, where you still see a lot of apps with a minimum requirement of Android 6.
All this to just say that it's much much worse to be on an non-updated Apple device than an Android one. Your apps won't take too long to stop getting updates.
bigyikes|4 years ago
ghostly_s|4 years ago