Too few windows in your house? Resign yourself to cyberpunk dystopia and wear a VR headset at all times to solve this problem in the virtual world!

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The issue:

The presence of windows in a house is a major factor in determining of whether a house is dark and cavern-like or bright and uplifting.

Unfortunately, it is usually impractical or impossible to add windows to a home after its has been constructed. Additionally, windows generally have a negative effect on climate control: it’s usually more expensive to heat and cool a house with a large number of windows.

As a concrete example, Figure 1 shows a dimly-lit staircase that would be a lot nicer with a window.

Fig. 1: This staircase could really use a window (as indicated by the blue-taped region on the left wall). Unfortunately, this taped region is on an interior wall, so it’s physically impossible to place an outdoors-facing window there.

Proposal:

Presumably, in the near future, everyone will walk around wearing VR goggles at all times. (This is just a tiny step beyond the current state of affairs, in which people hold their phones at all time.)

This opens up the ability to add virtual windows (for free!), even in locations that can’t actually support a real window (Figure 2).

Fig. 2: By taping off a region of a wall and hanging the proper QR code on it (this one says “WINDOW_TO_FOREST_SCENE”), the VR headset would know what kind of scenery to put beyond the “window.”

Figure 3 shows a mockup of what the user would see through their VR headset.

Fig. 3: Although the hallway itself is unchanged, the impression given to the apartment-dweller is greatly improved by the virtual autumn garden beyond the window.

If the user ever gets sick of the “FOREST_SCENE” beyond the window, they need only print up a new QR code (Figure 4) with a different image-generation prompt on it.

Fig. 4: This QR code says “WINDOW_TO_FOREST_SCENE,” which is the prompt that the VR system will use to generate scenery for the fake window. But it could just as easily be “TROPICAL_BEACH” or “WELL_MAINTAINED_ENGLISH_GARDEN.”

Technical Note:

It might be slightly difficult for a VR system to track the blue taped window frame: if that turns out to be too unreliable, this system could fall back to the classic chroma-keying (green screen/ blue screen) used by television and movie producers for decades. The only downside of that system is that any other green or blue object will also be transformed into a FOREST_SCENE.

PROS: Definitely feasible with modern technology! Would probably work really well for skylights, since then you wouldn’t even need to render a 3d scene (just a fake blue sky).

CONS: The virtual window won’t actually transmit any light from “outside,” so even a “sunlit beach at noon” outside won’t help actually make a dark room less dark.