Post date: Dec 05, 2011 2:4:33 PM
A Chinese clothing company has developed a 3D interactive fitting mirror which allows customers to see how they will look wearing certain clothes without having to wear them at all. Kilmeny Duchardt reports.
HAINING, ZHEJIANG PROVINCE, CHINA / HANGZHOU, ZHEJIANG PROVINCE, CHINA -It's a three dimensional, interactive mirror and it's designed to speed up the process of shopping.
Currently on trial in selected boutiques, the mirror allows shoppers to try on the store's clothing without having to try it on at all..
Using four cameras and motion sensors, the mirror displays three dimensional images of the merchandise stored on a built-in computer chip. Shoppers can virtually try on anything they choose, scrolling between images with hand gestures.
According to its developers at Chinese tech company, Hangzhou Digital, it's all about skipping the fitting rooms and saving time. Company vice president Lawrence Chen says it's the first of its kind.
Lawrence Chen, Vice President of Hangzhou Digital, saying (Mandarin):
"In the early stages, we were researching how to combine and fit virtual things on the images captured. We spent more than a year trying to perfect this and make this technology become our intellectual copyright. From the end of last year, we worked to add the more mature motion detection technology to our augmented reality system."
As a novelty, the mirror is certainly attracting attention, but not all customers are impressed.
Lin Meilou, consumer, saying (Mandarin):
"If I really like one piece of clothing, I would go try on the real thing. In the machine, I can only see how I look with the clothing, but I do not know the size. So I still have to physically try it on."
Hangzhou Digital says it's making improvements to the technology and that hopefully the mirror will bring new sales that are anything but virtual.
Kilmeny Duchardt, Reuters.