Recently updated on November 14th, 2021 at 02:45 am
If you have a dream to travel to Santorini, but not yet have the luxury in term of time and budget, maybe you can try doing it virtually first, soon. With the VIRTUALDiver platform, you can experience the virtual underwater experience in that magical holiday destination from the comfort of your home.
Where is Santorini and Why the Place is so Famous?
For those who is not familiar with Santorini, it is a volcanic island at Cyclades in Greece. The place is very famous for the stunning view, colourful beaches, beautiful sunsets and underwater activities such as swimming, diving and snorkeling. It is estimated that around two millions tourists visit it annually. However, the cost to travel and enjoy the moments there is quite expensive as well. Nearly twice as expensive as Athens.
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What is VIRTUALDiver?
VIRTUALDiver is a research project where once it is completed, it will offer the opportunity for us to virtually tour in marine environments. Easily said, it is the virtual underwater experience that you can try at your home. To make it interesting, the marine tour can be alternated with the coastal-terrestrial tour. At this moment, the content will be targeted at the cultural and tourism industries surrounding Santorini.
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This project is done by using VR and AR technique which will use the VR headsets, tablets or special peripherals. This VIRTUALDiver projects took nearly two years in term of development. The idea comes from a geologist and associate professor at University of Athens named Evi Nomikou. She aimed to create a virtual underwater tour where users can decide their own personal diving experience. And also users were able to explore the areas of the touristic and environmental interest such as marine parks, sunken harbors, shipwrecks, unique geomorphological structures etc.
With this strong purpose, she brought University of Athens in contact with three Greek companies. The three companies are TETRAGON, Steficon and up2metric. This collaboration is as part of the university’s Research and Innovate program with the industries. In this project, the team consists of scientists, geologists, computer engineers, geographers and programmers.
In April 2019, Ms. Nomikou and her team, presented the idea and first blueprints of VirtualDIVER at International Geosciences Association (EGU) conference in Vienna, Austria. The team received positive response and feedback there.
Is this Virtual Underwater Complex?
The project will use the virtual map and the cool thing about this virtual map is that it is an exact adaption of the real one up until the tiniest details. The team able to do this because in this project, they combine the research results of underwater surveys along with the terrestrial data and use it in the creative way for this project. So, VIRTUALDiver is actually a complex and comprehensive Digital Platform that combines scientific data with narration of various narrative scenarios to deliver the nearly accurate VR and AR experience.
What Kind of Technology Is Used to Produce the Virtual Underwater?
They are using various high tech equipment such as underwater vehicle such as ROV (Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle), unmanned aerial vehicle such as drone and swath mapping system. For underwater data collection, they are using BlueROV2 from Blue Robotics. And to get the photorealistic and accurate 3D representation of the Santorini areas, they utilize the Phantom 4 Pro drone and a GNSS station. In terms of graphics, they are using Unity 3D a lot in their project as you can see below.
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You can get the details on technology used by them and the diagram of the process above from the VIRTUALDiver website here. You can watch the video here to appreciate it more…
This platform target to be ready in October 2021. For more information, you can read it here as well:
1) The VirtualDIVER Official Website.
2) “VirtualDIVER: A virtual reality underwater experience in Santorini” from Greek City Times.
3) “20 Amazing Things to do in Santorini, Greece” from Earth Trekkers.
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