Method and system for furnishing, decorating and utilizing areas in accommodations, office areas, stores, gardens and storage facilities, and similar areas.

The present invention is related to a method and system for building technique, and especially to a method and system comprising a terminal and server providing a visualization in three dimension of user selected choices related to furnishing, decorating and utilization of areas in accommodations, office areas, stores, gardens and storage facilities, and similar areas, wherein user choices are selected in a two dimensional representation of the areas by manipulating the two dimensional drawings of the areas by inserting or removing objects collected from a database on the server comprising objects from suppliers of building materials and other types of objects related to the area in question, according to the independent claims 1 and 10.

Building houses, renovating accommodations etc. regarding homes, business areas, shops, gardens, storage areas etc. is something that usually is done by experts in the field. However, the owner, business manager, family members etc. all have views regarding these matters. For example, the task of buying a home for yourself and your family may therefore be a challenging project. Usually the home in question needs to be refurnished for example, and the potential buyer may have doubts about costs related to redecorating the home, and even how changes actual will look like in the specific home, hi the prior art there exist many solutions for visualizing appearance of houses etc., but these systems are so called expert systems used by architects and engineers. The problem of the potential buyer is to be able to verify how changes and associated costs actually will manifest it self when the buyer is at the location it self without being an expert and without access to a computer system comprising such a system. Further, a potential buyer of a house should not be required to by a licence for such a system nor should he be requested to learn the skills of operating such a system.

hi prior art there are some examples of user friendly computer based systems providing help to potential byers, wherein the system comprises expert knowledge from architects etc. Such an example is US 2006/0101742 Al that disclose a system and method for automatically assist a consumer with space design and furnisihing selections. As depicted in Figure 8 A and Figure Figure 8B of this publication, the client locates a website comprising an embodiment according to this disclosure. The client responds to questions about preferences, requirements, etc. The client provides a floor plan, and the design assistant recommends a furnishing option for the client. The system may

comprise a database with commercial available furniture etc., and the customer may get an overview about costs when using the recommendations provided by the design assistant of the system. The client may modify selections interactively. However, the problem adressed in this disclosure is related to the problem of viewing how a property may look like when a potential byer is at the premises. The rendering of a three dimensional model of a flat for example, will assist the potential byer in reaching a decision about bying the flat, and the eventual additional costs that he would have to finance to convert and/or decorate the flat to reach the standard of his choice.

A further aspect of this situation is that the user or potential buyer needs to be in interaction with the environment he is actually standing in when he wants to assess the potential of a property he may want to bye or rent. The manager of a business may need to understand the potential of a store; storage area etc., and the cost of remodelling the property, to see the effect of any changes. This can best be achieved when the manager is standing in the actual space of the property. That is, what he actually sees in his surroundings should be the starting point for visualizing different choices related to for example moving a wall, changing a wall colour, changing the appearance of a door, adding a window etc. For an ordinary consumer the question is also what is available in the market place, what kind of doors there is etc. Therefore the problem the potential buyer is facing is not merely a question of visualizing a model of a door, but also a question of what can be visualized, and how actual choices will and appearances look like in this specific home. Therefore the user or potential buyer needs in addition to visualizing the property, access to suppliers of building materials, furniture suppliers etc. together with prices, materials, consumption of materials, usage of materials etc. and similar information to be able to choose correctly.

Another example of "on the spot" planning situation can be found when containers for example is about to be loaded onto a ships deck. The officer in charge will benefit form a system that is online with a database comprising information about the containers that is to be loaded, parameters such as size and weight, content and order of unloading the containers that may effect the utilization and disposition of the ship deck. In such situations, a three dimensional visualization could help the officer in charge to "see" a correct and optimal utilization of the ship deck as he views the deck on the spot.

According to an aspect of the present invention, this is an example of visual logistics. The term "visual logistics" is related to a situation comprising selecting among multiple possible actions, locations or similar objectives related to surface and space in

accommodations and storage facilities, or similar types of compartments, and then visualize the selections in three dimensions on a computer terminal such that the effect of the actual selections and actions can be verified, and then calculate any costs related to the different selections, and produce material lists comprising location information about objects that has been selected, consumption of paint, wallpaper, floor covering etc. and similar items together with names and suppliers identification tags, addresses etc. without requiring prior knowledge of expert systems related to building technique.

According to an example of embodiment of the present invention, a database is installed on a networked server computer system, wherein suppliers of building materials, service providers of for example Telephone, TV and computer networks, flowers and garden equipment from a nursery etc. may install graphical three dimensional images of objects, materials and information, descriptions of materials and objects, costs, descriptions, etc. of their products and services, and real estate agencies can store two dimensional layout drawings of properties they are selling at the moment, and wherein an Application Specific Interface on the server is providing an access point for user terminals gaining access to the information stored in the database, and wherein a user of the terminal then can manipulate the display and information on his terminal via routines in the API comprising steps of a method according to the present invention.

According to yet another aspect of the present invention, the user terminal can be a mobile phone with networking capabilities, a Personal Digital Assistant or a laptop computer the do not need any prior downloading of software to be able to access the server according to the present invention. According to an example of embodiment of the present invention, a standard WEB browser in the terminal is used to gain access to the server. Any graphical interface in the terminal may be used as long as the API in the server computer system supports this particular interface. That is, the database and API is the only software components necessary to implement steps of a method according to the present invention.

According to yet another aspect of the present invention, the database is exchangeable with other databases together with any computational software related to the content of the exchanged database. According to a further aspect of the present invention, this modular implementation allows additions of database modules and computational routines as necessary for the application. An example of embodiment of this aspect of the present invention comprise a database storing information about transport containers

and computational routines providing answers to questions related to loading and unloading the transport containers to/from a ship.

Fig. 1 illustrates an example of generic database record according to the present invention.

Fig. 2 illustrates an example of relationship between different database records for a living room.

Fig. 3 illustrates an example of steps of a method according to the present invention.

Fig. 4 illustrates an example of system components according to the present invention.

Fig. 5 illustrates input data from a supplier according to the present invention.

Fig. 6 illustrates an example of two dimensional layout drawings according to an example of embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 7 illustrates an example of an Application Specific Interface according to the present invention.

Fig. 8 illustrates another example of an Application Specific Interface according to the present invention.

Fig. 9 illustrates steps of a method according to the present invention.

Fig. 10 illustrates an example of different media players that can be used according to the present invention.

Fig. 11 illustrates an example of API steps when a user is initiating a session with the API according to the present invention.

Fig. 12 illustrates steps of a method according to the present invention for providing a three dimensional image on a user terminal.

Fig. 13 illustrates an example of manipulating a two dimensional layout of an apartment according to the present invention.

Fig. 14 illustrates another example of embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 15 illustrates an example of three dimensional rendering according to the present invention.

Fig. 16 depicts a flow diagram of an example of embodiment of the present invention.

An aspect of the present invention is to provide a database on a server computer comprising at least visual information about objects, and other informations such as properties regarding materials etc. Fig. 1 illustrates a generic example of embodiment of a database according to the present invention. The database design is scalable as indicated in the Figure 1 with extra extended database records on the left side of the Figure 1. A product for example, for use according to the present invention is stored with a product identification parameter ProducffD that can be used to search for the product by searching the database as known to a person skilled in the art. Through database relational operators other database records can be linked to the ProductDD parameter. An examples as depicted in the Figure 1 is a record called Item that comprise for example a three dimensional image of the product. The Item record has an ItemED parameter that may link the Item further to other database records, for example a database record related to flowers, called Flora in the Figure 1. Another example of product linking can be to a record related to paint, as indicated in the figure. As can be seen form Figure 1, the different database records may comprise parameters related to usage, consumption, volume of the product, three dimensional visualization data comprising geometric data as well as texture data, and similar types of data. Such parameters may be used by computational routines to provide three dimensional rendering of the products, consumption of material, instructions for use etc. Examples of embodiments of the present invention comprising such features are disclosed below.

Figure 2 depicts another example of a database according to the present invention. On the right hand side of Figure 2, there is a graphical listing of objects that suppliers have provided for the database. The first image on the right side of the figure comprises a geometrical vector description of a chair. As known to a person skilled in the art, different texture data can be combined with such a model. Therefore, by providing different texture data, different appearances of the chair may be displayed in the system. As indicated in Figure 1, it is possible to have a texture record and a texturelD that

enables searching the database finding different textures that may be graphically combined with the chair when the chair is rendered.

Further on the right hand side of the Figure 2, there is an image of texture for the chair, an example of flower, and a two dimensional drawing of the layout of a flat, for example provided by a real estate broker, hi the illustration of the two dimensional layout, some triangular shaped objects is used by a user to link different objects to certain locations in the drawing. On the left hand side of the drawing there is a three dimensional rendering according to the present invention of the accommodation with the selected objects.

Figure 3 provides a more detailed description of an example of embodiment according to the present invention. A user access the database on a server via a network from his user terminal. For example, the user wants to by a property. He therefore starts locating a two dimensional drawing of the property stored in the database. According to another aspect of the present invention, the API provides also a simple drawing routine which enables the user to draw a simple 2 dimensional sketch of the property, for example when he is actually on the premises of the property, hi either case, the user have a two dimensional sketch of the property on the display of his user terminal. Existing doors, windows etc. are marked with numbered triangular shaped symbols, as described below. The three dimensional rendering of the room from the two dimensional sketch is known to a person skilled in the art. However, a main aspect of the present invention is that the appearance, texture, size, etc. for a specific object such as for example a door is stored in the database, and not as an integral part of the graphical image of the door. In this manner it is possible to visualize different appearances of doors, add extra doors etc. As can be seen in figure 3, texture data is loaded and the complete scene is rendered providing three dimensional image of the selections performed by the user, and by manipulating the two dimensional image on the user terminal. A consequence of using the database as a source for data related to the objects that are visualized, is that output data from the system can be generated as a relation to the actual objects that has been selected. For example, output data may comprise information about volume of wallpaper, paint etc. that is necessary to use to achieve the selected choices, hi the database, there is records indication typical consumption of paint pr. square meter etc. The actual surface area may be computed by a routine in the API thereby providing an answer to volume, price, what time it will take to paint etc. The API according to the present invention is extremely flexible, whereby any type of data may be recorded in the database together with any type of calculations in an appropriate routine to achieve any

form of output data that is necessary for the intended use of the system according to the present invention.

Another important aspect of the present invention is illustrated in figure 4. Any type of user terminal may be used for accessing the database over a network. An objective of the present invention is to provide an API that requires no pre-loaded software related to the present invention on the user terminal. Therefore, any terminal with a graphical windowing system may be used to gain access to the API according to the present invention. The only requirement is that the API supports the windowing system on the user terminal. For example, a WEB browser may be used to access the API on the server. Through routines in the API, the different steps of a method according to the present invention are embodied.

Figure 5 illustrates an example of data in the database related to a chair. A supplier of furniture may provide the data as indicated on the right hand side of the figure 5.

According to an example of embodiment of the present invention, the API according to the present invention provides an interface to suppliers of objects, materials, services etc. that enables such suppliers to update the database such that users may gain access to their products, services and other relevant information.

Figure 6 illustrates another example of embodiment of the present invention illustrating that two dimensional drawings may be integrated into the database, either by submitting drawings in a specific format, for example PDF files, or by actually drawing a sketch of the layout on the terminal by using a routine in the API running on the server itself. If for example a real estate agent is providing the drawing of an accommodation, he will also provide information about address, price, size, transport, etc. If a user is drawing a sketch of an accommodation on the spot, such additional information is usually restricted to approximated measures of dimensions of rooms.

According to the particular use of the present invention, the database may be supplied with a limited set of data. Figure 7 and 8 illustrates that data may be entered and retrieved through standard terminals, also extensions to the database may be managed this way.

Figure 9 illustrates another example of embodiment of the present invention. An empty space in an accommodation is to be refurnished by a potential buyer that wants to estimate the appearance of a certain furnishing of the accommodation, and a cost

estimate, name of suppliers, consumption of materials etc. In this example of embodiment of the present invention, the user first contact the server via the Internet to get a two dimensional visualization of the layout of the room. A browser provides the windowing system in this example. Together with the two dimensional layout drawing,

5 there is a visualization of different furniture's that the user may pick and place onto the two dimensional drawing. When the user have made his choices, a two dimensional representation of the drawing together with information indicators, numbered triangles, the API now provides a rendering of the scene. The layout of the accommodation is converted to a three dimensional image by the rendering routine in the API, while the C numbered triangles are converted to products searchable in the database. Stored three dimensional images of real products (including selectable different textures) are mixed to scale with the rendered three dimensional image of the accommodation. The final image is displayed in the browser window on the terminal. As known to a person skilled in the art, different media players may be used to display images on a terminal. Figure s 10 illustrates some of the possible media players that may be used according to the present invention.

Figure 11 illustrates one of the aspects of the present invention, that is, the terminal do not need any form of preloaded software to be used according to the present invention. 0 According to an example of the present invention, this is used to provide a simple terminal that potential buyers of homes may get from a real estate agent when the potential buyer contacts the real estate agent. When the user or buyer turns on the power of the terminal, the terminal automatically contacts the server, and starts loading the application, that in this case can be a list of properties that the real estate broker has for ₅ sale. The user may then select a property he is interested in as explained above.

Figure 12 illustrates in more details the aspects of visual logistics according to the present invention. A user may select different products, solutions, materials etc. form the database. Interactively the user may then place a product on a floor plan, or point out 0 a wall that should be painted in a certain colour etc. The API receives input data, generates a three dimensional model of the scene, and then images of objects, materials etc. are scaled and loaded into the three dimensional scene. A rendering routine then displays the result on the user's terminal. Figure 13, 14 and 15 illustrates different aspects of this process. 5

Figure 16 illustrates another example of embodiment of the present invention illustrating how the API manages the loading of product images. If for example an

image is not found, the API may prompt the user to create a default image for this product.