As much as we enjoy online shopping, buying clothes without trying them on can be risky. With brands following different size charts during the manufacturing and labeling process, we’ve all been in a situation where we had no clue which size to order.
There is nothing worse than waiting for your parcel to arrive only to realise that all you can do with your new clothes is go back to the post office and return it. Well, Amazon might just have the perfect solution for all online shoppers.
The company has apparently patented a technology for a virtual mirror. Yes, that’s right – Amazon is working on a virtual reality display mirror which will virtually place you in a virtual version of a dress or an outfit that you are looking at online.
Amazon’s magic mirror will make your online shopping more realistic
According to Amazon’s patent, this virtual mirror will use a mix of cameras, projectors, and displays to create a blended image, while being both transmissive and reflective.
The mirror will also scan your environment while identifying your face. This way, it will apparently be able to create a virtual model and determine which objects will be seen in the virtual reflection.
Using the blended reality system, the mirror would be able to add pixel layers on your moving reflection, in the real time.
While looking at the mirror, users will be able to see a reflection of illuminated objects and transmitted images from the device. In this way, transmitted images will be shown as they were a part of the reflected scene.
This virtual mirror will combine reflected and transmitted images to generate blended VR view
The best feature of Amazon’s new patent is that it can combine your reflection with an image behind the mirror. So, let’s say you are looking to buy a new swimming suit and you would like to actually see how it fits you.
This virtual mirror could actually transmit a beach image while inserting your reflection and imposing virtual swimsuit on your body.
As the mirror will use different sensors and lights, it will also feature face-tracking sensors to realistically blend combines image reflection from any angle.
Since Amazon has recently acquired a US-based company, which uses virtual reality and computer vision for creating 3D gaming avatars and clothing models, it is obvious that this online giant is seriously focusing on virtual shopping.
The company is named Body Labs and is based in New York. Their technology already includes AI and applications with the ability to virtually “try on” different clothes and see how they fit on a human body.
All of these features would definitely create one futuristic and quite a cool mirror that could potentially change the e-commerce world forever.