GeoVr – Virtually explore!

Drifting Apart aimed to present and promote geological heritage in innovative ways. This is best demonstrated through DoubleVR a virtual reality concept that can be used for:

  • Educational purposes;
  • Interactive exhibitions;
  • Entertainment industry and more!

DoubleVR allows users of all ages to explore Earth history in a new immersive way. Natural, cultural and built heritage are presented through multi-dimensional pictures, illustrations, sounds and animation. Together these create a layered scene which the user view, engage with and ultimately learn from.

Magma UNESCO Global Geopark led partners in this part of the Drifting Apart project.  This first step was to find a company able to work this the partnership to realise this vision. DoubleThink  a Norwegian company won an open tender process. DoubleThink, a Norwegian company, completed the technical work to process footage into high-quality 360 scenes, integrating hot-spots including photos and video clips and developing a Content Management System (CMS).

iThis innovative technology allows people of all abilities to visit our wonderful outdoors, while promoting our natural assets, documenting our current environment and demonstrating how geology connects across continents. The immersive exhibition will be available in at least one location in each partner country and may be moved to different locations in an area over time. Each exhibition may take the form of a touch pad computer or goggles such as Oculus Rift.

A how-to guide for filming in 3D was produced in early 2016. Each partner will use this to help them capture their local sites.

Filming work has already begun in Norway and Iceland (see more!) while Northern Ireland and Scotland will begin to film shortly. Once Canada and Russia have completed filming their sites the footage and interpretive material will be processed and made available online in a custom built platform.

During Summer 2016 Magma launched a pilot exhibition in Jærmuseet Vitengarden (science museum) to test this new technology and review how the public interacted with it. Over 200 users were asked about the exhibition and all reported that it was an engaging and interesting way to experience and learn about the landscape. Information from this research has been fed-back into the technology design and will help shape how partners set-up the exhibition.

 

 

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In this short video Kjetil from DoubleThink demonstrates how virtual reality can work on an IOS/mobilephone.

 

In this video Chris from DoubleThink demonstrates how the footage can work with Oculus Rift goggles.

 

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