Shutterstock has announced the launch of its first augmented reality (AR) feature, available on the Shutterstock customer iOS application.

The latest update to the iOS application includes a new “View in Room” button that allows users to access their camera phone and virtually position any of Shutterstock’s 250 million images against the wall in a room of their choosing.

Shutterstock’s in-house mobile team leveraged the iOS ARKit framework to create this virtual reality experience, enabling customers to interact with the expansive Shutterstock collection in a whole new way.

Shutterstock customers are increasingly using the collection in the form of in-home, in-store or in-office artwork, for retail spaces or for restaurant decor.

Now, rather than imagining how a new image would look hanging on their wall, they can bring their imagination one step closer to reality by simply using the Shutterstock app to position an image virtually in a room before licensing.

Shutterstock CEO and founder Jon Oringer said: “We have been committed to experimenting with cutting-edge technologies for over fifteen years.

“After years of advancing our in-house computer vision technology to enhance search capabilities on web and mobile, we are very excited to announce our first AR-powered mobile viewing experience for customers.

“This is yet another great project to have been developed from its initial iteration at our annual employee Hackathon, Hack to the Future.

“We decided to put this hack into production because of its potential to have an immediate customer impact.” 

With the Shutterstock customer app, users can click a button called “View in Room” which will switch to camera mode.

By holding the camera up to the wall, the app will identify the wall space and populate the image directly onto the wall.

The user can then adjust the size to get a better idea of what the image would look like on the wall.