Even in the absence of a holiday to an exotic destination, images of travel destinations can transport us to worlds we may not have the time and resources to explore. Travel magazines, travel shows, vlogs, travel postcards and other forms of media have in the past filled in the void. However, with the advent of virtual reality, it is now possible to go on a fairly realistic and immersive travel experience. That experience will get only better and more realistic as virtual reality hardware continues to evolve. In the future, thanks to sophisticated VR and haptic technology, you will be able to lie on a beach, touch the waters in the ocean, feel the warmth of the beach and go on virtual travel experiences that feel completely real.

Some form of that future is already with us thanks to some really impressive virtual reality travel experiences. Let’s have a look at some of these: –

Chernobyl VR Project

Platforms: PlayStation VR, PC VR

Watched a tour of Chernobyl by popular YouTuber ‘bald and bankrupt’ and I thought that was the most intimate rendition of the site and the village which brought the scale and aftermath of the tragedy to life. This VR rendition by a Polish developer team takes through a similar tour and captures parts of the Chernobyl nuclear plant along with the ghost city of Pripyat using a number of techniques. Apart from the 360-degree shots, the experience also includes walk-through environments like the abandoned workers’ apartment, a vacant 3rd Elementary School, and the ruins of the local hospital that have been created using photogrammetry techniques. To create the 3D scans, the team had to go into the danger zones of the site, equipped with a Geiger counter. The developers say the site is falling apart and will eventually disappear and VR rendition is intended to preserve the site for posterity.

Nefertari: Journey to Eternity

Platforms: PC VR

This virtual reality journey takes you to the heritage of ancient Egypt and, more specifically, the burial chamber of Queen Nefertari. A team led by Simon Che de Boer had done a millimeter-precise reconstruction of Queen Nefertari’s ‘journey to eternity’ which really brings that experience to life in an immersive environment. Through virtual reality, you will appreciate the patience, dedication, and craftsmanship that the team devoted to the reconstruction of the burial chamber. The VR experience brings out even the elevations, the finest textures as well as errors, the details of which all come out in the lighting of the virtual flashlight. You can even click on some of the frescoes and learn about their meaning. The developers of Queen Nefertari: Journey to Eternity used Artificial Intelligence to realize the impressive image quality.

VersaillesVR

Platforms: PC VR

This is the largest photogrammetry project ever done so far of the Palace of Versailles. The development team scanned a total of 21 rooms and up to 36,000 square meters of the palace complex. The rooms and the objects in the rooms were digitized with photo scans, including the many paintings and sculptures therein. There are accompanying texts that explain the history and significance of the artifacts. Over terabytes of data were processed in the reconstruction which generated more than 15 billion pixels.

The virtual tour will take you through the monarch’s private chambers, his private opera house, the chapel, and the hall of mirrors. At the push of a button, you can switch the experience to night mode and explore the palace in the pale moonlight, something you wouldn’t be able to do in real life. Unless you break into the palace and sleep there overnight!

Brink Traveler

Platform: Meta Quest (2), PC VR

The VR rendition of Brink Traveler fine-tunes the travel app in terms of not just its visual perfection in the 3D reconstruction of the travel experiences but also in the interface and the way in which VR users interact with it by hand. You will get an awesome experience when you try it out with the Meta Quest 2, allowing you to visit very unique places on the planet in virtual reality. Although this VR app won’t take you on extensive hikes, it is a nice app for some relaxation or meditation.

At launch, the app provides up to 12 travel destinations. Hopefully, in the future, the studio will continue replenishing the travel destinations to offer users a more varied experience. The developers promised three additional travel destinations this month.

The Last Goodbye

Platform: PC VR

The Last Goodbye takes into Majdanek concentration camp, one of the most brutal Nazi death camps during the Second World War. You will be ‘traveling’ through Majdanek alongside Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter who was deported to the camp in 1943 alongside his family from the Warsaw Ghetto. Pinchas’ sister and parents were murdered in the camp. In the VR experience, he will be guiding you through the key well-preserved locations of the camp including the shower room, barracks, the disinfection bath, the gas chamber, and the cremation ovens. The rooms in Majdanek have been digitally reconstructed to very fine technical detail using photogrammetric techniques so you can look around and move freely in the photorealistic rooms as if you were actually there. The image of Pinchas Gutter has been impressively digitized so you will see him standing there, almost like the actual persona, and reporting on his camp experiences.

Il Divino: Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling in VR

Platform: PC VR

You can now visit the Sistine Chapel in virtual reality and spend as much time as you wish inside there without having to contend with the long lines and the hassle of other tourists squeezing in to get a glimpse of this medieval attraction.

The developers of Il Divino: Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling in VR used historical drawings and documents along with photogrammetric techniques to realize the centimeter-precise reconstruction of the vault. The VR rendition even features true-color and high-resolution reproduction of the frescoes and the result is quite impressive.

The app provides a guided tour along with a free exploration mode. You can even climb onto Michelangelo’s wooden structure where “the divine” painted the ceiling to give you some recreation of the conditions under which the artist worked and also know more about his painting technique.

You can click on more than a hundred segments of the ceiling and the wall painting whereupon you can even hear an art historian speak on a given subject.

Blueplanet VR Explore

Platform: Meta Quest (2), PC VR

Blueplanet VR features a large selection of digitized landmarks. Here, you can explore a comprehensive collection of more than 40 virtual locations that are scattered across the world. They range from pristine natural attractions to cultural spots. This is a premium VR experience although you can try out a free demo on Steam which includes three travel destinations. The Quest and PC VR versions of the experience are pretty much identical in terms of both the content and the interface.

EverestVR

Platforms: PlayStation VR, PC VR

Interested in some virtual mountaineering? Not many of us are equipped with the skill and grit needed to climb a Mount Everest. However, with this virtual reality experience, you will immerse yourself into a realistic experience of what mountaineers typically go through when scaling Everest. You will climb a rickety ladder over a crevasse, climb up an ice wall in a snowstorm or endure a night in the freezing cold inside a tent.

EverestVR digitally reconstructs Mount Everest and the surrounding Himalayas in impeccable detail. The developers stitched together more than 300,000 high-resolution images of the mountain into a three-dimensional model using photogrammetry techniques to create a crisp and true-to-life rendering of the highest mountain peak in the world.

https://virtualrealitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Travel-Through-Interstellars-Wormholes-with-Oculus-Rift-600x338.jpghttps://virtualrealitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Travel-Through-Interstellars-Wormholes-with-Oculus-Rift-150x90.jpgSam OchanjiGamingTechnologyEven in the absence of a holiday to an exotic destination, images of travel destinations can transport us to worlds we may not have the time and resources to explore. Travel magazines, travel shows, vlogs, travel postcards and other forms of media have in the past filled in the...VR, Oculus Rift, and Metaverse News - Cryptocurrency, Adult, Sex, Porn, XXX