HomeLane's SpaceCraft: Using 3D to put the fun back into interior design

Everything, from wall paint to furniture dimensions to table-top finish, is coded in to look as close as possible to the end product; moreover, the tool offers a great deal of transparency in pricing

Designing your perfect home involves a great deal of back-and-forth, re-iterations and stress. Thanks to technology, this is now changing.

Think of a scenario: you are sitting at your home, looking into a browser window on your laptop. A 3D model of your room (or kitchen) is on the screen and you are talking (on the phone, simultaneously) to a professional designer who is placing modular installations and furniture digitally into the 3D model, almost as if he was using Lego blocks. 

This is SpaceCraft for you. SpaceCraft is a tech tool created and used by interior design start-up HomeLane. Along with its peer LivSpace, HomeLane is part of a new breed of start-ups, in India and abroad, that are taking home decor online -- and using technology to ease the creative yet cumbersome process.

This is not your average 3D simulation, typically seen in education and training industries. Here, everything from the paint on the wall to dimensions of the furniture to the exact finish of the table top, is carefully coded in to look, as identical as possible, to the final product. The model also simulates the internal and external environment to give near precision results. For example, if one puts a window to the 3D model, it brightens up the room to show how it would look in daytime.
 

“Before we implemented this, a typical process would have several back-and-forths between the designer and the customer before the designs was finalised. It would typically take many weeks,” says Srikanth Iyer, co-founder and the chief executive officer of HomeLane. “And if the customer wanted a change after the designs were finalised, she would have to wait for a new quote (fee), which could take further time for the designer to come up with.”

More than the sophisticated 3D models on SpaceCraft, Iyer says, HomeLane customers appreciate the price quote display. With every item added, or removed (including the choice of paint or laminate), a price stamp at the top right corner of the screen reflects the final cost of the design. “The instant quote is extremely useful to the customers,” says Iyer.

Designing the system, however, was not that simple. Iyer says it took around a year for his team to design SpaceCraft, and another six months for iterations. 

It starts with a system that coverts a 2D floor plan into a full-fledged 3D model. The next step is to ensure that each and every furniture item is converted to a virtual model (3D vector) and placed in a digital catalogue that the designer plays with. 

HomeLane has tied up with Asian Paints for wall paints, and UrbanLadder for furniture, which helps it to create the exact digital replica of wall colour tones and furniture.

While this was done, a lot of (one-time) software and coding work went into making a virtual meeting-room architecture. Think of it as a Sykpe conference where, instead of seeing each other, all parties see the 3D room model and collaborate on it.

SpaceCraft has been a differentiator for HomeLane and has allowed it to deliver on its promise to finish up a project within 45 days, says Iyer. Going forward, the company is planning to add more products into the 3D ecosystem, say for example wallpapers. While it’s a great place for consumers to get a feel of a piece of decor, it is also an ideal platform the companies to sell this products. 

HomeLane now wants to add artificial intelligence (AI) to SpaceCraft. The plan is that with the customer answering only a few questions about her taste, expectations and budget (regarding the decor of the room), SpaceCraft is able to suggest an optimum design for the said room on its own.