Shipwreck VR

ShipWreckVR was a proof of concept project developed in collaboration with the University of Hertfordshire's G+VERL team to create a virtual reality experience of exploring sections of the SMS Markgraf, a WW1 German battleship scuttled at the end of the war at Scapa Flow, Orkney, reconstructed into a 3D point cloud using photogrammetry. This project was produced as part of the Scapa100 event in 2019, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the scuttling of the German fleet. 

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The project was developed using the Unreal Engine 4 and utilises third party plugins to allow for point cloud data to be loaded in. As the point clouds are so large; and so they can be viewed in VR, they have been segmented and altered in the 3D procedural software, Houdini.

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Due to there only being certain segments of the wreck being recreated in high-count point clouds, points of interest were created on the user's mini map, allowing for them to select and teleport to that position. The areas can be physically explored if the demo space is big enough, but the project was designed to allow for the main details to be seen from a small area of play.

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The idea for the project was to allow the general public to be able to experience shipwrecks that otherwise only experienced divers can see in a way that would allow for the true scale to be appreciated, and to preserve the wrecks current states as they continuously degrade and erode over time.