Shutterstock Inc., the website best known for providing artwork and photos for use by web designers, today announced the release of a new feature that allows users to see what a piece of artwork would look like in their room.

The “view in room” feature uses a mobile device’s camera and augmented reality technology to display an image or photo as if it had been framed and hung on a wall. Users can select from Shutterstock’s collection of over 250 million images.

The feature has been added to Shutterstock’s iOS application and is activated by locating the “view in room” button available when browsing images. Although AR might seem like a leap for a stock photo service, Shutterstock founder and Chief Executive Jon Oringer insisted, “We have been committed to experimenting with cutting-edge technologies for over 15 years.”

The feature takes advantage of Apple Inc.’s iOS ARKit, an augmented reality software development kit and application programming interface designed to allow developers the ability to implement and deploy AR apps and features quickly on the company’s devices.

The development framework allows for software engineers to quickly design AR features that can identify floors, walls, ceilings, tables and other objects in an environment and project virtual objects layered over normal vision. As a result, it is possible to make it appear as if a 3-D object such as a cereal box or a toy is sitting on a table, or even place items in the room.

This capability has been used in marketing to show what a new car would look like in a garage, what a wall would look like with different paint or wallpaper and even what a new chair would look like in a living room with existing decor.

With this feature, customers need only face a wall in their house, point their mobile device’s camera at it and then click the “View In Room” button. The application does the rest and places the image on the wall as if it were actual artwork.

The idea is to take the guesswork out of how the artwork would look when combined with other elements of the room. Using ARKit technology, the app is also able to resize the artwork according to desired dimensions before the artwork is licensed. The customer can then take the artwork’s digital file to a printer and have it reproduced in the real world for placement on the wall.

“This is yet another great project to have been developed from its initial iteration at our annual employee Hackathon, Hack to the Future,” Oringer said. “We decided to put this hack into production because of its potential to have an immediate customer impact.”

Shutterstock offers a vast library of images including high-quality photos, vector artwork and illustrations and also licenses videos and music to businesses, marketing agencies and media organizations. Of course, nothing stops a customer from buying licensing artwork for their residence. Potential wall-featured artwork could include a unicorn silhouette in stars, a stunning idyllic waterfall or, for those who cannot escape work, an empty office.

The “view in room” tool is immediately available today in Shutterstock’s iOS app, which can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store.

Image: Shutterstock