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Virtual Reality (VR) Showroom: A Tech Guide

Virtual Reality (VR) Showroom: A Tech Guide

With 35-year experience in software development and 28-year experience in 3D modeling, ScienceSoft offers comprehensive virtual reality development services.

Virtual Reality for Showrooms: The Essence

VR software for showrooms helps to increase sales, boost customer confidence in purchasing and reduce return rate by 60-80%, as well as improve customer experience and build brand loyalty.

Market Outline: Virtual Reality in Retail  

The virtual reality software in retail is expected to bring $5.4 billion by 2028, from $2 Million in 2021, at a CAGR of 13.82%. The driving force behind VR adoption in retail is the growing demand for personalized customer experience and the need for new ways of brand differentiation.

How a Virtual Showroom Works

Use cases

A virtual store

A virtual store

Stylish showrooms featuring selected items (e.g., from a new collection) to shop remotely in the VR environment.

Business type: B2C

Industry:

Retail – clothing

Product-specific VR experience

Product-specific VR experience

Remote or at a physical store – for example, furnishing a virtual room with a brand’s products or checking how the appliances work in a virtual home.

Business type: B2C

Industry:

Retail – home and decor

Retail – home appliances

Virtual test-driving

Virtual test-driving

Possibility to drive a car in varied terrains, with haptic feedback fully recreating real-life experience.

Business type: B2C

Industry:

Retail – automobiles

Virtual house tour

Virtual house tour

Recorded or guided in real-time – potential buyers explore property replicated in VR (existing property or architectural rendering).

Business type: B2C, B2B

Industry:

Real estate

Architecture and construction

Exterior and interior design

Virtual product presentation

Virtual product presentation

A presenter uses VR to show B2B leads how a particular product works and what benefits it brings, either remotely or at trade shows.

Business type: B2B

Industry:

Manufacturing

Automotive

Technology products

Features

The set of features is defined individually based on each use case. Some of the common features are:

Customer-side:

Product discovery

  • Product metadata check-up: pop-up displays with a product’s info (price, sizes, characteristics, etc.).
  • Product customization: changing available product configurations (colors, patterns, tech specifications).

VR navigation tools

e.g., hotspot navigation: users can click or lock eyes on the labeled hotspots in the VR space to get teleported straight to them.

AI assistant

Helps navigate the simulation, gives personalized product recommendations based on what products a user interacts with.

Multiplayer

Enabling a group of users to join the VR simulation at the same time and from different locations.

Customizable avatars (for the multiplayer mode)

Users can choose an avatar to identify each other in the simulation.

Integration with payment services

and/or social media.

Business-side:

VR content management system

Adding/removing products or their configurations and editing their metadata.

User analytics

Collecting user behavior statistics (e.g., defining most and least popular products/features among users).

VR System Architecture

VR Showroom System Architecture - ScienceSoft

Examples of Virtual Showrooms

Success story

Natuzzi, a global furniture brand from Italy, has augmented their physical stores with virtual showrooms where customers can decorate a place with Natuzzi’s products. This initiative contributes to a 30-50% store sales increase during the most active months.

Success story

For IFA 2020 trade show, LG launched an interactive virtual showroom highlighting the capabilities of their flexible OLED TV screens in different home-style zones. The showroom was available to consumers around the globe via web and mobile apps, thus broadening the audience that could engage with the brand in a new entertaining way.

Consider the Development of a Virtual Showroom?

ScienceSoft offers VR consulting and development services to create immersive virtual simulations with high performance.

General Technology Stack

VR Showroom Development Challenges and Solutions

Challenge

In VR, the shape of 3D models is defined with a polygon mesh to enable their real-time rendering. As the rendering of highly polygonal models (with curves and complex textures, like many products in the VR showroom can have) is heavy on GPU, it slows down the simulation.

Check out the solution

Solution:

Applying the level of details (LOD) technique to adjust the visual fidelity of 3D models based on the distance from a user’s view. When further away, their polygon mesh is simplified (e.g., the texture is less detailed), but as a user moves closer, it gets rendered at full scale. Such a difference won’t be noticed by a user but will optimize the rendering engine workload.

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Cost Drivers of a Virtual Reality Showroom

Talking from ScienceSoft’s experience in VR projects, the cost of a virtual reality showroom will start at $150,000. The cost will vary depending on multiple factors:

Core cost drivers

  • Method of capturing real-life content for VR (3D CAD rendering, 360° photography, laser scanning).
  • Number of 3D models optimized for VR and software to render it.
  • Complexity of interactive scenarios.
  • The depth of VR testing.

Additional cost drivers

  • VR hardware.
  • Development of advanced modules and their integration with a VR app:
    • User analytics.
    • AI assistant.
    • VR Content Management System (CMS).

Operational costs

  • Cloud services (based on the volume of cloud resources demanded).

VR Showroom: Consulting and Development by ScienceSoft

ScienceSoft relies on 35-year experience in software development and 28-year experience in 3D modeling to deliver high-end virtual reality showrooms for various business sectors.

Virtual showroom: consulting

Our consultants:

  • Help create/finalize the VR showroom concept.
  • Choose the right tech stack.
  • Design a scalable architecture.
  • Define a VR development and management roadmap.
  • Estimate TCO and ROI of the VR system.
Request VR consulting

Virtual showroom: development

The service covers all the stages of VR system creation:

  • Business analysis and research.
  • Software architecture design.
  • UX and UI design.
  • 3D modeling.
  • VR development and testing.
  • Continuous support and evolution.
Request VR development

What makes ScienceSoft different

We achieve project success no matter what

ScienceSoft does not pass off mere project administration for project management, which, unfortunately, often happens on the market. We practice real project management, achieving project success for our clients no matter what.

See how we do that

About ScienceSoft

ScienceSoft is a globally operating IT consulting and software development company established in 1989. Our experience in novel technology helps us develop efficient virtual reality solutions, including virtual showrooms for B2C and B2B needs. Achieving project goals in spite of time and budget constraints, as well as changing requirements, is ScienceSoft's top priority. You set goals, we drive the project to fulfill them.