New technology designed to bring products to life and save shelf space is being trialled at a New Malden supermarket.

Shoppers at Tesco can hold up a product key or catalogue to webcams in the shop’s aisles to generate a life-size 3D projection of products.

The Augmented Reality (AR) technology is being provided by British company Kishino and works as the computer recognises the product image, like face recognition, and plays a video on top of it.

The retail giant hopes the interactive technology will engage shoppers and will also save space as bulkier items do not need to be stocked on shelves.

A Tesco spokesman said: “We know our customers would prefer to see every product in a range for themselves before making a purchase.

“However, it is not often not practically possible to display, for example, the more than 180 televisions that sell in a store.

“Through AR we are able to offer realistic and life size representations of what that product will look like within people’s homes or their local store.”

Products featured are a selection of Samsung Televisions, 10 selected Lego models and trailers for some of the current top DVD and games releases.

The trial is running at six stores across the country.