PST provides software tools to the conservatory and window industry. For its VisiRoom app we built cross-platform AR in Unity that lets homeowners see a conservatory, orangery, garden room, window or door on their own house – at real scale, aligned to the wall and the ground at once – before they buy.
A conservatory placed on the house in AR, seen on iPad
8,000+designs downloaded by users
The challenge
PST's customers – installers and fabricators – needed a way to show homeowners exactly what a conservatory, orangery or garden room would look like on their own property before they committed. Photos and brochures can't convey real scale or placement; homeowners want to see the real thing, full size, against their own house.
The technical problem was alignment. Standard ARKit and ARCore set-ups place content on horizontal planes such as floors, tables and driveways, but an extension has to sit level with the ground and flush against the house wall at the same time – something off-the-shelf AR couldn't do.
Our approach
We designed the app around four ways to view a design, each suited to a different stage of the sale: an on-screen 3D model with a walk-around view from inside, table-top AR that puts a miniature on any flat surface, real-scale AR on the house itself, and a Google Cardboard VR mode for stepping inside.
For real scale we built a custom multi-planar alignment system on top of ARKit (iOS) and ARCore (Android). It finds the horizontal ground plane and the vertical wall plane in the camera feed, then snaps the model to both, so the extension sits flush against the house and level with the ground.
The results
VisiRoom gives PST's installers and fabricators a sales tool that shows homeowners what they're buying, on their own property, before they sign anything. It shipped on iOS and Android from a single Unity codebase, with all four views working across phones and tablets.
Installers can hand a homeowner their exact specification as a QR code that opens straight into AR, and a request-a-quote button connects homeowners with local installers. VisiRoom's own website reports more than 8,000 designs downloaded by its users.
Technical highlights
Multi-planar AR alignment
custom ARKit and ARCore work that detects the ground and the house wall and snaps the model to both
Four ways to view
on-screen 3D with a walk-around interior, table-top AR, real-scale AR and Google Cardboard VR
Cross-platform Unity app
one codebase for iOS and Android, with platform-specific AR tuning
QR code designs
an installer's configuration for a customer opens directly in AR
Realistic placement
adjustable shadows in real-scale mode, plus snapshots to save and share the view
AR-ready catalogue
conservatories, orangeries, garden rooms, windows and doors, with request-a-quote built in
The house wall and the ground detected at the same time, the basis of real-scale placement
Placement preview: the extension’s outline aligned to the wall and the ground
The orangery in real-scale AR, flush to the wall and level with the ground
Real Scale mode on a phone, with the design attached to the house at full size
Walking around inside a conservatory design on iPad
Table-top AR: a miniature conservatory on the dining table
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