Pre-selecting Products & Materials
Link straight into the visualiser with a product, a material, or both already chosen.
Purpose: drop visitors straight into the product they were already looking at.
Any link to your visualiser can carry optional parameters that pre-select a product, a material, or both. The visitor skips the picker and sees their choice as soon as the visualiser opens. This pairs naturally with product page "Visualise" buttons.
Parameters
| Parameter | Pre-selects | Accepts |
|---|---|---|
dp (or product) | A product | The product's slug or SKU from your Viewa catalogue, or one of your own identifiers registered as a catalog alias |
dm (or sku) | A material | The material's slug or SKU, or a catalog alias |
product and sku are alternative names for dp and dm, for integrations that
already send those. If both forms are present, dp and dm win.
Examples
Substitute your own instance URL and identifiers:
<!-- Product only -->
<a href="https://your-instance-url?dp=ROLLER-BLIND-01">Visualise in Your Home</a>
<!-- Material only — the visitor chooses the product -->
<a href="https://your-instance-url?dm=CHARCOAL-WEAVE">Visualise in Your Home</a>
<!-- Product and material -->
<a href="https://your-instance-url?dp=ROLLER-BLIND-01&dm=CHARCOAL-WEAVE">Visualise in Your Home</a>
<!-- Straight into a specific room -->
<a href="https://your-instance-url/scene/living-room?dp=ROLLER-BLIND-01">See it in a Living Room</a>
<!-- Your own identifiers, resolved through catalog aliases -->
<a href="https://your-instance-url?product=roller-blinds&sku=FAB-1001">Visualise in Your Home</a>A material is only applied if the selected product offers it. With a material on its own, it is applied once the visitor picks a product that offers it.
Opening in a new tab
Whether to open the visualiser in a new tab depends on the journey you want. With
target="_blank" your page stays open behind it, so visitors can close the visualiser
and carry on where they left off; without it, the visualiser replaces your page and
they have to navigate back. When you do use target="_blank", add rel="noopener"
alongside it.
Catalog aliases
Your site rarely uses Viewa's slugs and SKUs. A catalog alias maps one of your own identifiers onto your Viewa catalogue, so your links can use the values your platform already has — a WooCommerce variation SKU, a Shopify handle, or a category slug.
Each alias maps one identifier to one of:
| Alias target | Use it for | Example |
|---|---|---|
| A product | A category or product identifier from your site | roller-blinds → Roller Blind |
| A material | A fabric or colour SKU | FAB-1001 → Linen Blockout, White |
| A product and a material | A SKU that names both at once | RB-1001-WHT → Roller Blind in Linen Blockout, White |
| A material range | Recorded for completeness — a range SKU pre-selects nothing | LINEN-BO |
A SKU that names both a product and a material pre-selects whichever one the
parameter asks for, so send it in both: ?product=RB-1001-WHT&sku=RB-1001-WHT.
How aliases are matched:
- Matching ignores case and surrounding spaces, and aliases are per instance.
- An alias takes priority over a Viewa slug or SKU with the same value.
- An alias that points at something the parameter can't use — a material alias in
dp, or a range SKU anywhere — matches nothing. It does not fall back to a catalogue match.
Viewa sets up your aliases for you — send us the identifiers your site uses (a product feed or export is ideal) and we'll map them onto your catalogue.
Things to know
- Values are not case-sensitive.
- An unrecognised product or material is ignored — the visualiser opens with its usual defaults rather than an error, so a link to a discontinued SKU degrades gracefully.
- The selection persists for the rest of the browser session, surviving navigation inside the visualiser.
- Some CMS and email editors escape ampersands. If only the first parameter is applied,
check the
&between them. - Pre-selection isn't yet supported on child instances — a visualiser that shares another instance's catalogue, such as a dealer or branch site. Links there open with the usual defaults. Contact us if you need it.