MCG discussion list member Kate posted to ask for example Google Cardboard projects, and very kindly followed up with a post summarising comments and projects using these cheap virtual reality headsets. We’ve shared it here to make it easier to find. Over to Kate:
- Jon Pratty says museums are behind the wider arts sector, but he will be putting the results of an R&D project, Sittingbourne 360, on www.ideastest.org.uk shortly. This created a 3D model of part of Sittingbourne and the Roman road that runs through it, linking it with ordnance survey, census and other data.
- Museums have been rather more ambitious with Minecraft (BM, Tate and Museum of London’s Great Fire spring to mind). Robin Patel points out you can make yourself even more dizzy by playing Minecraft in VR, using this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTWqi0TtM6g
- Corey Timpson at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights has just run an exhibition called ‘Empowering Women’ which includes a virtual walk through Guatemala (and not Ghana as I misremembered before – apologies!). Links: https://humanrights.ca/explore/exhibit/empowering-women/virtual-reality-experience, https://humanrights.ca/exhibit/empowering-women. There were two Oculus stations in the gallery. Evaluation still to come, but anecdotally very successful.
- A volunteer at Royal Pavilion and Museums in Brighton has created a 3D walk through model of Brighton Pavilion at different stages of its history. Ask Kevin Bacon, digital manager for more. Link: http://brightonmuseums.org.uk/discover/2017/01/09/new-year-new-dimension-the-royal-pavilion-estate-in-vr/)
- The Royal Institution nerdily asks if it would have been possible to walk to the moon in David Bowie’s lifetime, and provides a VR friendly film to answer that question here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&list=PLbnrZHfNEDZwAxUjqu0dtJO39RFzBotoX&v=YCmcq1T2n1Q&app=desktop
- Polysyllabic Dinosaurs! Brought back to life! Swimming round the Natural History Museum! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH1AvqYXwHQ (details: Matthew Prosser)
- Michael White at Parks Canada says Google developed Expeditions (https://www.google.co.uk/edu/expeditions/#about (‘VR which uses Cardboard as its platform’) focused more on the formal education sector, for things such as school outreach programming and offers virtual school trips to national parks and historic sites, and they plan to use it ‘as a kind of enhanced public activity at urban outreach venues in Canada’s largest cities where we typically have little of our own on the ground presence’. Michael says
“Although it’s by no means the higher end of what’s happening in VR, the nice thing we’re finding about Expeditions is there’s very little technical effort/expertise needed in developing one, you just need some of your own decent resolution panoramic photos, or you can use pre-existing content on Google Street View, and associated written speaking points similar to an
interpretive program.”
- IWM are dipping their toes in the water with a 360 Classroom shot of the B29 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkEo8DR3DDk&index=1&list=PLolzHiCNNbO85M8lRK4UppOmG9NBbyEA9
- James Morley suggests the Cardboard developers group https://plus.google.com/communities/111524380182206513071 , or contacting the Google Cultural Institute or Piotr Adamczyk (who may or may not be on this list)
UPDATE: Since posting this summary, a few more discussion list members have contributed their VR experiences:
- Phil Stuart at Preloaded, who has created VR content for the Science Museum, emphasised the excitement still felt by the public at the presence of a VR headset, although this comes with high expectations and the risk of damaging the appeal with low quality experiences. He recommended Gear VR and Daydream, which provide high quality VR across multiple devices, and the formats can easily be transferred to webVR and Google Cardboard. The Handley Page VR created for the Science Museum (in just under eight weeks!) allows visitors to experience the Handley Page aircraft, and is available in Gear VR and Cardboard formats.
- Ben Vickers at the Serpentine recently worked on their first VR exhibit with Google Cultural Institute and Zaha Hadid Architects – originally designed for the VIVE, but later released for Google Cardboard. The team will soon be sharing more detailed information about the project so that others can learn from their experiences.
- Original poster Kate has also found out about a new VR headset from Lenovo, which should offer a good ‘middle ground’ between price and quality.