Some years back in 2017, I got a Favolcano VR viewer from some conference I attended. It was a freebie. Part of the swag they gave out.
At the time, 360VR was relatively new but you could use your iPhone as the player and the viewer as a stereoscopic device to immerse yourself into the movie.
Since then, the quality of VR has improved dramatically and it’s a bit of fun (and relatively cheap) if you want to experience if for yourself.
You can make your own viewer if you want to not spend any money at all. Or you can just buy a cheap cardboard or plastic one off eBay.
From these viewers, you can view videos on YouTube designated as 360 VR. There’s a lot of them now online with more added with the quality getting better. There are some with rendered computer generated environments (like games) and there are others (ones I prefer) which are real life just filmed with a 360 camera that shoots all around the scene.
This afternoon, I experienced a nuclear war in New York, 5 roller coaster rides and the sinking of the Titanic. I also got a guided tour around Venice and spent a lovely time walking the streets of Oxford.
You can view these normally as you would like watching the screen normally or click on the Viewer icon on the bottom right of the clip to see the screen show two images. Then put your viewer on your head and watch it in 3D.
They’re not something you can spend the entire day in because let’s be honest, it’s not real life. You don’t get to experience the wind in your hair, the different smells of the place, the true acoustics around you. For the real ones, you can see the person shooting the film and it just seems “odd”. I guess it’s similar to being escorted around a town by a silent person who is always behind you steering you. 🤣
Here’s some videos I saw today.
It reminded me of the first time I tried out VR at a presentation Donald Clark gave to some learning and development workshop. He had the Occulus Developer kit and brought it along to show one of the programs he had on a roller coaster ride.
Here’s my experience….yes that’s me looking at my hands. 👇
Some years later, we bought our own PlayStation VR and it was hilarious when I went under the sea to experience this shark attack. 🤣 I couldn’t use it today as Andrew spent the entire day on it gaming. So I was left to my own devices in the other room and while I was writing a blog post about empathy and VR, I decided to take a little detour.
The only annoying thing with the Play Station is that it’s too bulky for me, takes ages to set up and I have to prevent the car from chewing the cables. Also, I don’t like playing VR games (I don’t have the patience) preferring instead to learn instead such as tours of cities or learning history.
Well anyway it killed a couple of hours….
Until I saw this and freaked out. initially I thought she was a robot. Look how she’s acting!
Feel Free to Share Your Thoughts