IMAGINE THIS
A woman passing by the window display is captivated and asks her companion Isnt the leather bag chic Which one do you mean There are so many of them. The woman points to one of the bags and the purse appears on a display in the shop window.Then she points to a button and the object rotates.So thats what it looks like from the back. She makes another gesture to zoom in letting her see every detail.
This experience is possible thanks to a 3D system from the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications in Germany.Its interactive shop window enables people passing by to put goods behind shop windows onto a display with simple hand and facial gestures.
GETTING INTERACTIVE
Interactive shopping has been standard operating procedure in the Web for a long time.Now,were putting this technology into pedestrian passageways and shopping centres with the entire unit behind the window, said Paul Chojecki,a scientist at the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications.
Cameras continually record the 3D positions of the hands,faces and eyes of persons passing by.Then,imageprocessing software calculates the coordinates and transforms them into the corresponding inputs for selecting goods,viewing them in detail and immediately purchasing them even after business hours.
Anyone interested can have also themselves shown product information such as colour,material,price,availability and information on the manufacturer.
HOW IT WORKS
The interactive shop window consists of four cameras and visualisation software.Two of these stereo cameras record the face and eyes while the other two record the motion of the hands.Image processing recognises both gestures such as when you turn your hand and when you point to a button with your finger that you can see on a monitor.The researcher adds that the system doesnt store any personal data and only the coordinates of the body parts it recognises are passed onto the visualisation.
The way the payment process is taken care of is also left up to the shop owner.
But thats not all.The interactive shop window not only identifies how many people are in front of the shop window,but it also can suggest on the basis of the gathered data what products and information the people passing by might be interested in.