In 2022 VivaTech, a European benchmark startup expo, honored three Taiwanese startup companies with awards in the Coup de Coeur category of the Next Unicorn Awards. FaceHeart is a software vendor that uses artificial intelligence (AI); Ible Technology has developed the world’s smallest wearable ionic air purifier; and iStaging is applying augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and other technologies to the real estate, tourism, and retail sectors, for which it was also shortlisted for the 2022 LVMH Innovation Award.

Rene Fang, CEO of iStaging, recently returned to Taiwan from Paris and London. The reason iStaging caught the judges’ attention, she says, is not only that they count four of the world’s ten leading luxury product groups among their clients, but also that iStaging has made AR/VR technology more approachable. Three-quarters of their clients come from other sectors. Based in 50-plus countries worldwide, they range in size from a group valued at €60 billion to a solo freelance photographer. Through iStaging, everyone can take advantage of technology to become part of the metaverse.

In the beginning, there was chaos

The “metaverse,” which has been such a hot topic in recent years, refers to a kind of shared virtual space realized through technologies like AR, VR, and mixed reality (MR). Through them, people can break down the barriers of the real world and enter the metaverse using 3D virtual identities to play online games, engage in conversations, go shopping, watch movies, attend concerts, make trades, and more, much as seen in the 2018 film Ready Player One.

In 2015, iStaging founder Johnny Lee put together a team specializing in AR/VR technology and platform R&D under the auspices of the Industrial Technology Research Institute and established a new startup company aiming to intro­duce VR technology into the fields of real estate and home design. At that time, the concept of the metaverse was still in its formative stage.

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought a massive rise in “contactless” business opportunities. We may not have been able to travel abroad, but we could nonetheless visit boutiques online and make purchases.

Sparking imagination with AR

In 2017, iStaging launched VR home viewings for Yungching Realty, and since then the technology has attracted clients from around the globe.

Real-estate agents, designers, and builders can generate VR spaces by uploading panoramic images. When a buyer or house-hunter browses a house online, they get not only an immersive layout and sense of space but also a feeling of actual movement. The technology can even simulate renovations.

VR home viewings have seen explosive growth in real-estate markets in Western Europe and in sparsely populated regions of Australasia and Latin America, attracting substantial inter­national investment. With the Covid-19 pandemic making it impossible to travel abroad, being able to remotely check out properties and take virtual tours has further highlighted the convenience the technology can bring.

Through their visual computing and display engine, iStaging transforms planar objects into 3D ones. As long as you can go online, these objects can be viewed in AR using your smartphone.

Visit an exhibition in an online virtual space. (courtesy of iStaging)

Breaking down the barriers

“No matter how cool a technology is, it has to also be easy to use. This is the ultimate goal of technology R&D—making it so that anyone can use it.” Fang notes that this is the crucial point that helped iStaging become global number one in commercial virtual spaces.

While she got her start in venture capital, Fang uses the language of engineering to explain their strategies of “dimensionality reduction” and of “replacing hardware with software,” and how the subsequent boost in convenience has enabled their technology to spread worldwide.

She explains that iStaging’s clients—the merchants running ­e-commerce operations—no longer need to purchase hardware costing upward of NT$10,000 to produce their own VR, nor do they even need to be able to code. As long as they can use a mobile phone to take photos of floor plans and panoramas and upload them to the cloud, they can create a VR space at an affordable price. For just US$5, they can create three sets of VR objects to use in commercial sales.

“Our algo­rithm renders the 2D photos into a 3D space. This is the concept of the metaverse.” Web Tsai, iStaging’s VP of technology, explains how floor plans are transformed into 3D, or how planar objects are transformed into 3D objects through their visual computing and display engine and back-end editor, enabling products to be rotated through 360° and opened or closed. In this virtual world they can also do exploded views, opening things up so users can see chips in computers, lenses in cameras, or filters in coffee machines.

At the user end, there’s no need for VR glasses or headsets. So as long as you can get on the Web, you can browse these metaversal spaces.

“It’s thanks to our initial decision to focus on a browser-­based engine,” says Tsai. “Our development is based on the idea that long as the user can open a browser, they can see the content.”

He continues: “We use a complex and constantly optimized algorithm to calculate the 3D spatial model using cloud computing, making sure there are no rough edges, uneven walls, skews, or gaps in the image. This software-driven technology is highly competitive inter­nationally.”

The goal of the iStaging team is to facilitate discussions and develop products that customers find valuable, on a pay-for-performance basis.

With VR experiences that integrate Web 3.0, users can use virtual avatars to enter spaces where the virtual and the real come together. This image shows the StaFun World experience. (courtesy of iStaging)

Virtual meets real in the pandemic

What this means is that every product sold on an e-­commerce platform can potentially be rendered in 3D. Therefore, virtual objects and commercial spaces can be used not only in the real estate industry but also in tourism, culture, e-commerce, and a variety of other fields. This has also meant that since 2019, iStaging has been presented with a wealth of new VR opportunities. The ability to re­invent 2D e-­commerce webpages as 3D virtual showrooms through VR/AR has attracted more than 30 brands under the umbrella of the French luxury products group LVMH, who have put this technology to use to transform digital sales.

Not only have they used this to add a greater sense of reality to the products, since 2021 LVMH group member Louis Vuitton has invited VIP “super buyers” and global media to attend online fashion presentations using virtual avatars. Consumers can walk around the elegant, ­luxurious showroom, pick up brand-name bags to inspect, and place orders, showcasing the interactivity and experience of what the metaverse can offer and inspiring French boutique brands like Kering and Richemont to become ­iStaging ­customers.

Right now, the metaverse is not just about the VR portal experience but can also be combined with Web 3.0. David Ko, iStaging’s product manager, points out that in virtual commercial spaces, users can communicate directly through instant messaging, and online matchmaking and purchasing are also possible. You can arrange AI guides to explain and introduce products, and buyers can use virtual avatars to exchange business cards, interact with each other, and share reports, turning the scenes from films like Ready Player One from the screen to the real world of business.

The pandemic’s restriction of interpersonal interaction and real-world contact, and the consequent rise of contactless business opportunities, have paid dividends for iStaging. The cancellation of international exhibitions due to Covid-19 has led to the emergence of 3D digital exhibitions.

As the metaverse and Web 3.0 have become key industry trends in 2022, the door has been opened to the nigh-unlimited business opportunities the metaverse presents. Merchants around the world hope to use these technologies to reach far-flung customers and make products or spaces on web pages three-dimensional. Rene Fang believes that this is of a piece with iStaging’s vision of becoming a “digital landlord” for merchants around the world.

iStaging CEO Rene Fang (standing) and her management team.