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A travel agency plunges tourists in a virtual experience of British Columbia using the Oculus Rift program, purchased by Facebook recently.Destination British Columbia plans to use the Oculus Rift as an approach to pull in visitors to this Canadian region.
This is simply the most recent approach that designers took with Oculus, valued at $2 billion when Facebook bought it. Presently, Oculus can be subscribed only by developers and is not yet accessible for mass consumers.
The travel agency said they want to exhibit the virtual trip to trade shows next year and then put it on the market for users to download free of charge provided that the headsets will be also available.
David Giovondo, creative executive who worked to design the virtual tour offered by the technology, noted that he and his colleagues aim at developing an interactive and immersive experience giving individuals the chance of settling on decisions just as they were really in British Columbia.
Destination British Columbia is one of the first travel agencies to provide prospective tourists with virtual reality encounters in North America.
Janice Greenwood-Fraser, travel media relations manager for the agency declared that the VR feature creates a feeling of plunging in a place that it gave the agency the idea that it could be used for persuading potential tourists to visit a certain destination. She added that the agency strives to be trailblazer in tourism and to show purchasers, as well as to the travel industry that Oculus is a very convincing tool when it comes to advancing a tourist site.
Around $500,000 were invested in creating “The Wild within VR Experience” production by the agency. This virtual sightseeing leads travelers and tourists on an enterprise on the coasts and into the rainforest. The experience offered by the Oculus Rift virtual reality can be easily compared to a ride in a carnival.
Oculus Rift works by putting a headset on clients’ heads together with a couple of earphones. At the first encounter the users are displayed two screens, one for each eye. As the feature starts, the two displays start to mix into one and the client is all of a sudden encompassed by ocean lions, trees and water. The video is 360 degrees scenery, allowing the costumer to look up and down or even turn around. The cam inside the device is additionally equipped to pass from a single to a third perspective.
The images were recorded using GoPro cams connected to a tridimensional spherical printed rig. Also, aeronautical footage was captured with a drone.
