3D technology at the service of art

The Aronson Antiquairs gallery, based in Amsterdam and specializing in the sale and collection of porcelain, has provided its clients with a unique opportunity to study in detail and even present objects from their collection in their own interior without leaving home. To do this, it used AR (Augmented Reality) technology and special development of the FloatScans company in the field of 3D scanning.

The new program for creating virtual three-dimensional models of various objects allows not only to scan the geometric shape and color of an object, as it was before but also to show its interaction with surrounding light sources.

In times when people are limited in their movements, this ability to display an item without the need to package and ship it around the world is especially important. When using this AR option, you really get the feeling that the item is right in front of you, a gallery representative commented on this development. A feature of this use case for AR is that, if you wish, you can view the object of interest from all sides, not only in the showcase of the gallery exhibition hall but even in the interior of your own home.

The only limiting factor for the viewer distinguishing such a virtual image from the same hologram is the fact that the object can only be seen on the screen of a smartphone or other similar device, but not in the real world.

The technical side of this development is also impressive: while an ordinary photo of good resolution (allowing you to see the small details of the image in detail) usually has a size of about 5 MB, a scanned 3D object has a size (or “weighs”) about 10,000 MB – that is, 2 thousand times more. For the convenience of the user, special software reduces this volume to a size that is optimal for perception even by outdated smartphones.

To view the image, you do not need to download a separate application or program – it can be opened directly in an Internet browser. Using the camera of their device, the user scans a surface on which a virtual 3D object can be “placed”, and then “sets” the object on the screen at its actual scale. Probably, in the future, such technologies will become widespread and become a common thing in our everyday life.