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by naet 1342 days ago
This isn't meant to be a literal blueprint maker- it's an idea machine. The advantage of Stable Diffusion is that you can put an actual photo of your real life kitchen in as a seed, and see the ideas applied to your space. It's not the same as browsing through pictures of kitchens on pintrest or houzz, which show entirely different locations of different sizes, different lighting conditions, or different dimensions; it's hard to imagine or apply those ideas to my space if my space is radically different. My kitchen is a small apartment kitchen with a single window and a narrow space, it isn't analogous to 99% of the posts I saw scrolling through houzz just now. But if I could upload a picture of it and see 5-10 new cabinet arrangements or designs, I might be inspired by one and use it as a jumping off point for a new setup.

Someone with zero design experience could run this over a photo of their kitchen and realize that their exact real world kitchen would look nice with a different set of paneling, or a different set of chairs, or a larger window, etc. Obviously they have to consult with an architect or other expert to see how feasible larger renovations are, it's not meant to replace architectural work, but there is plenty of value already added as an inspiration tool. In fact it might lead to a lot more work for architects, if they can use a tool like this to show potential clients a bunch of inspiration for how their kitchen could look, without doing any actual architectural work up front.

2 comments

Yeah, that's what I saw too, a digital mood board with blobs of abstract kitchen-like things that you could theoretically cut and paste the parts you like onto a digital whiteboard.

Once that part was done, then the designer could use those bits and pieces to identify what you like best and cross reference that with what is available and what is possible within your budget and get you the result that you would be happiest with.

With that, the actual designer is still a very important piece of the puzzle and this does very little to replace them.

The images definitely look good enough to serve as ideas/inspiration IMO. A sketch doesn't need to look photorealistic to inspire you.
But at that point does it need to be your room even? If the results aren’t actionable because of constraints, why not just flip through images of existing real world kitchens?
Well yes a double sink and a six top cooking space look great on brochures but it's only when you try to fit the fridge, the window and that awkward door that you realize you'd end up with a single 60cm working space or the corner element won't open or the dish washer door interferes with the fridge door or walkable space or you can only open drawers standing on their side
GP was talking about inspiration. That doesn’t mean you get to carbon copy anything.

When the AI blows away support walls and rearranges things that can’t structurally work, its utility is limited too. It can also dream up sinks/fridges/ranges that don’t exist with sizes that aren’t realistic either.

I’m supportive of the general direction but in a model that’s built for it where all the real constraints can actually be accounted for reliably. That would allow you to go beyond looking at pics for inspiration into renderings you can flip through easily. Bonus points if it can approximate cost, including plumbing and electrical in rearranging things for where plumbing and electrical already are.

It doesn't look like this stable diffusion would be able to tell you that either. You can see it changing the shape (angles) of the room in real time. It does not show cabinets at real depth etc.
Correct. In a different field, we're using AI to do the same thing but for streets: https://twitter.com/betterstreetsai

...and it's already led to actual change: https://twitter.com/MikeBradleyMKE/status/157083982421467545...