Imagine being an Interior Designer and being asked…on the fly…to show different design options, a variety of furniture from manufacturers, carpeting styles, paint colors, etc all from a Revit model? If this sounds daunting or that it would be an impossible task…well, you are likely correct.  But a technology has been introduced to the public that might just be the unintended answer to this problem.  Autodesk Homestyler is an iPad application that is designed to allow anyone to import photos of a space and then decorate that space with furniture, carpeting, appliances, paint, accessories, etc all on the fly and from various participating manufacturers.

 

Before I get into how this works with Autodesk products, let me show you the first project I ever did with the software. I started by uploading this image of our old office into Homestyler:

 

Image

 

Then, with no training at all, I had this 20 minutes later:

Image

 

Not bad considering I didn’t know how to use the software 20 minutes before and I put almost no effort into it. The door openings could have been clean, the paint almost perfect if I had used a stylus on the iPad instead of my fat finger. 

Now back to Revit.  The image below came from the famous “Advanced” building model which comes from Revit. The only thing new is that I added a camera view to a large classroom.

Image

It isn’t much to look at, is it?  But if you upload that image into Homestyler it doesn’t know that this isn’t a picture of a real room! Thus you can set it up and use the real manufacturer content that Homestyler provides to place all the furnishings in the room.

Image

I added paint, carpeting, tables, chairs, papers & computers… many of which have real manufacturers behind them. The space above, once you pick up speed, could be easily finished in just 5-10 minutes.   It won’t look like a photo when done, but it will certainly get your design decisions across. Plus, when shown on an iPad, the interface is visually pleasing and keeps those watching interested…which means you can flip through design options, replace carpeting, paint, etc on the fly in front of the client and keep the conversation going.

If you own an iPad it’s a MUST download, even if you only have a casual interest in design. Apps like this are not the future of design, they are today’s design reality.

Homestyler: http://www.homestyler.com/mobile