Saturday, July 2, 2016

Virtual Reality Ziplining

I recently had the chance to go ziplining with my family in beautiful Kaua'i, Hawaii.  While doing it I took along my 360 camera and got great video footage of the ziplining (okay I'll be honest, it was the Ricoh Theta S, so it wasn't that great of video footage).  Once I returned home, I thought, "Why not see if I can recreate the experience in virtual reality?"

So I got out my rock climbing harnesses, tied my kids up in a tree, and using the Gear VR headset, made a virtual reality ziplining experience. They loved it.  Now some may argue that 360 video isn't really VR, but I think in this case, even though it was low quality video, and even though the video wasn't perfectly from a first person perspective, it didn't matter, it created an immersive, fun, virtual experience that my kids wanted to do over and over again.

Check it out:




Here is the 360 video footage:


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3 comments:

  1. Fantastic! I built my own zip line as a kid and have resurrected it on occasions to treat the kids. This seems like on of those rare occasions where 360 video would do just fine for an immersive experience. :) Love it!

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  2. Nice ride you did, and sweet treat for your kids (I wish I could see my son's reaction to this) !

    But did you manage to hack yaw pitch roll stabilization in the video (not provided whe you play it on youtube) ? If yes how (metadata in the theta video, from the accelerometer and/or magnetometer) ? If not doesen't it induce motion sickness ?

    Raphaël from Paris (France)

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  3. In this particular situation, it didn't matter that much. As they were swinging around on the rope, they already were disoriented and so the unstable video was not disconcerting and didn't seem to cause any problems.

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