An Innovative Platform for Virtual Underwater Experiences Targeting the Cultural and Tourism Industries

Author / Creator

GISTAM 2020 (2021)

Conferences

GISTAM 2020 Keynote lectures (2021)

Available as

Online

Summary

Although, the underwater environment is of great scientific interest regarding all fields of marine research, it has not been exploited broadly yet for cultural and tourism purposes. At the same ti...

Although, the underwater environment is of great scientific interest regarding all fields of marine research, it has not been exploited broadly yet for cultural and tourism purposes. At the same time, technology in the fields of virtual and augmented reality has undergone considerable development by providing technical solutions for environments that their modelling has been problematic or non-operational for a variety of spatial scales. To this end, we report on our recent progress in developing an integrated interactive framework for exploring natural (augmented reality) and virtual (virtual reality) environments in regions of touristic and environmental interest (eg. Submerged cities, shipwrecks, sunken harbors and diving parks, marine parks etc.) in order to enrich travel experience and promote specific and diverse forms of tourism. In particular, the designed solution combines high-resolution data acquired and processed with state-of-the-art technologies (swath mapping systems, underwater vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles) so as to create a synthetic topographic relief basemap and to analyze all its particular geomorphological and ecological structures as well as anthropogenic interventions. Moreover, through a set of special designed tools for multimedia content management, it is possible to write narrative scenarios and produce interactive experiences in virtual reality. In this way, users are able to assimilate to real (or even imaginary) environments through different media (e.g., tablets, virtual reality glasses, etc.). The integration of research knowledge into interactive narrative systems will furthermore result into the development of innovative research and teaching products to promote the complex, challenging, magnificent underwater environment and also to attract tourists of general or special interest. The developed digital platform, named VIRTUALDIVER, will enable users to navigate virtually in environments accessible only by underwater vehicles and in cost-intensive, research and scientific missions and make known the underwater cultural heritage.

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