Future Scenarios Envisionedby RICOH360 Vol. 1: Creating a Future without Walls
This series features future scenariosenvisioned by RICOH360.
It features how technology that records andanalyzes the entire 360 degrees range can contribute to society and the livesof people, and what kind of world will be achieved as a result of thistechnology.
This scenario was created during a workshopby next generation leaders who will examine the value of RICOH360 and its idealsituation.
Amid a world full of grim news such asclimate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and an inflationary economy. In themidst of all this, we have been thinking about the super-aging society.
A familiar house to which the elderly areattached is an irreplaceable thing.
However, it appears that dangers lurk hereand there in such houses.
Our homes, where we expect to be perfectlysafe, are a treasure trove of danger when viewed by experts, in terms of thetoilet and bathroom, which are areas we use on a daily basis without reallythinking about it.
If we could reduce these dangers even justby a little...
We want to analyze homes, eliminate thebarriers referred to as dangers here, and create a people-friendly home so thatpeople can continue to live there. That’s right, we want to provide proposalsfrom our field of expertise, the 360 world.
Renovation AssistanceService
According to the “Annual Report on theAging Society,” the number of the elderly whorequire assistance or nursing care is 6.68million and 77% of elderly-involved accidents occur at home. This means thatover 5 million people live their lives each day with the risk of injury becauseof an accident. The percentage of the elderlywho want to continue to live in their own home is high at 59%.
Renovation is a possible means of allowingthe elderly to continue living at home and also minimizing the risk of anaccident occurring but renovation can burden an individual with significantcosts. However, there is a program that pays 200 thousand yen as a renovationsubsidy for people who require assistance or nursingcare.
This allows us to set up a budget.
But will this type of unusual renovationwork?
People of allages, not just the elderly, are often anxious and unsure about many aspects ofrenovation for which they are unfamiliar.
When renovating the homes of people who requireassistance or nursing care, we can imagine thatfirst of all there are “family members” who are the customer, and “architects”and “building contractors” who perform the actual renovation work.Additionally, there are also “occupational therapists and physical therapists(OT/PT)” who will review and provide instructions for the renovation work sothat it is appropriate for nursing care. This will likely involve a great dealof work just to share information.
Is it possible for all of these people toshare the same information and remain consistent to finally complete therenovation work?
We had a hunch that 360 wouldprove to be useful for this challenge and this led to the proposal shown below.
Hypothesis to a Solution
Let’s hypothesize that an unfamiliarrenovation can be conducted smoothly if we build the following functions intoRICOH360, which is a platform that provides a variety of services with360-degree images.
1. 3D room restoration
Shooting 360-degree images of the inside ofa home in its current state and using 3D restoration enables us to view theinside of a room in three dimensions. 3D restoration images are shared via amobile app so this makes it easier for everyone involved in the renovation tonotice the presence of barriers in a room, and allows everyone to easily have amutual understanding on what is required.
2. Floor plan generation
Unlike a newly built house, a home that hasbeen lived in for many years does not often have a floor plan available, butsuch a floor plan is required when renovating the property. Automaticallygenerating this floor plan from 360-degree images and sharing it allows us tostudy how people receiving nursing care move around their house and architectscan use this as a reference for creating their own floor plans.
3. Automatic barrier detection
Barriers are discovered visually by peopleby looking at images with 3D room restoration (the function 1 above) but theuse of image recognition technology will also make it possible to automaticallydetect concealed barriers. This will reduce the amount of work for OT and PT,and allows more comfortable renovation to be done efficiently.
4. Mobile app
All of the proposed functions will bepackaged into a RICOH360 mobile or web-based app to allow people involved inthe renovation to message each other using a text chat and share a deeperawareness of the work.
Hypothesis Feasibility andResults
We have provided a variety of proposals butthese functions do not currently exist at RICOH360.
However, individual functions do exist inthe world and it will be a display of our skill as to how we can make full useof these functions or how we can form an alliance with professionalcontractors.
As a result, we can reduce the cost ofmedical fees, including the percentage paid by the national medical system forsuch fees, by reducing accidents in the home after completing renovations in asmooth manner, which is greater than the effect of reducing the anticipatedwork and time involved in sharing information. Moreover, by making it easierfor everyone to use, we can also support socially vulnerable groups and comeone step closer to the ideals of SDGs.
To create a future without walls we havecome to understand that there are many barriers that we must overcome.
At the same time, this was a study thatreminded us of RICOH360’s potential.
Author: Kakashi (pen name)
This article featured ideas discussed in aforward looking manner and asked the question “How can RICOH360 contribute tosociety?”
We will continue to develop RICOH360 as abrand that contributes to society and the future.
REFERENCES
Research on Planning Methods for Barrier-Free Retrofitting of Houses for the Elderly, etc.
http://www.nilim.go.jp/lab/bcg/siryou/tnn/tnn0825.htm
Current situation and changes in the social environment surrounding the housing and remodeling industry
https://www.meti.go.jp/committee/kenkyukai/seisan/reform/pdf/005_03_02.pdf
60% of remodeling units are by seniors 65 years and older
https://nspc.jp/senior/archives/10420/
community-based comprehensive care system
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/hukushi_kaigo/kaigo_koureisha/chiiki-houkatsu/
Welfare Equipment and Home Improvement
Long-Term Care Insurance Business Status Report
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/topics/kaigo/toukei/joukyou.html
White Paper on Aging Society
https://www8.cao.go.jp/kourei/whitepaper/index-w.html
Actual conditions and effects of home modification to promote home living for elderly people who need nursing care.
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/aija/72/622/72_KJ00004786864/_article/-char/ja/
Indoor 3D restoration
- Zou, Chuhang, et al. "Manhattan Room Layout Reconstruction from a Single 360°Image: A Comparative Study of State-of-the-Art Methods." International Journal of Computer Vision 129.5 (2021): 1410-1431.
.svg)
