At the start of this project I set out to create a virtual reality map of the summer camp I work with 3D scans of leaves and explainers scattered throughout to help VRnauts learn about trees. It was ambitious and, as I quickly found out, impossible to do without an actual structure scanner or internet access.

I scrapped the location and decided instead to set my project in Thornden park, much closer to the innovation lab and wifi. My project had four stages after the change of scenery: collecting and scanning the leaves, recreating Thornden park in Unity, recording the narration, and adding interactivity.

Collecting and scanning the leaves

Collecting the leaves was easy. I already had about 15 or so that I wanted to do. The issues started with scanning. Needle leaves, I immediately found, were impossible to scan with the iPad structure sensor. They were too small and only had one dimension to them. Deciduous leaves presented their own set of problems. The structure sensor had an easy time Scanning up to 30 percent of each leaf before completely losing the object when I rotated to the thin part of the leaf. I got around this by just stopping the scan at 30 percent for each leaf.

Recreating Thornden park in Unity

Recreating Thornden in Unity was harder than I thought it would be. I created a grid over the terrain in Unity and created identical ones on topographical, satellite, and symbolic maps I got online. I used the paint height tool to recreate the altitude change from the topographical map and the smoothing height tool to make it look less like stairs. I used various 3D objects from the standard assets pack to recreate buildings and trees based on what I saw from satellite imagery. The symbolic map helped me recreate roads.

Recording the narration

My roommate Richard Rich, a TA in dendrology, helped me to create the educational aspect of my project. We used information from Peterson’s guides and his dendrology notes to boil down what we wanted to say about each leaf to about 20 seconds. Once we had a rough script, we recorded each narration in the BDJ recording studios.

Adding interactivity

Adding the actual HTC Vive camera rig and transporter was easy. I just copied the assets directly from example scenes provided by SteamVR and the SteamVR Toolkit. I decided on Vive, because it allows for a greater degree of immersion than Oculus.

Making the map VR friendly was a lot harder than I thought it would be. At first I thought I would place the leaves around the map to allow for exploration, but after trying to use the transporter over and over again to move I got nauseous. I decided instead to move the leaves to a tight area around the water tower. This allows for travel to be kept at a minimum and for all of Thornden park to still be visible.

The order of the story was simple. Richard introduces the program and himself—playing the fictional Mr. Woods—right as the scene starts. From there the user may click around to each leaf to learn about it. When they are done, they simply transport to the exit and listen to a brief outro. The program then closes. Simple trigger-based playmaker elements were used to trigger narrations and the exit.

Sources consulted

I used several Youtube tutorials on navigating SteamVR and VRTK assets. I reread all of blog posts using Playmaker on vrstorytelling.org, as well as those dealing with HTC Vive.

Conclusion

I had two large takeaways from this project. First, I really enjoy outdoor education. About halfway through I started to look at graduate schools that offer outdoor education programs. Second, I found myself more capable than I thought at resolving issues with tech. I feel semi-tech-literate now.