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HEC enters the world of Virtual Reality

Tuesday, September 17 2019

HEC enters the world of Virtual Reality

Since April, the Heritage & Education Centre have been working with Volume, a digital development organisation to develop a historic and contempory ship surveyor experience. The experience, which has now been installed at 71 Fenchurch Street, places a player in the shoes of a Lloyd's Register surveyor on three ships throughout history. Once on board, the goal of the experience is to identify as many potential survey hazards and design faults as possible within the alotted time (three to four minutes). Potential survey faults include missing rivets, temporary fixes and damaged navigational equipment. Upon completion, the player will be awarded a score and will be added to an internal leaderboard. Moreover, if said individual has decided to opt in, they will be sent high resolution copies of digitised historic documents from HEC's archive.

A test of observation, speed and mobility, the experience's HTC Vive Pro hardware uses controllers with haptic feedback to provide guidance to aid the player. The experience will be available to visitors during future HEC events as well as being accessible to visitors of the Lloyd's Register Foundation and Lloyd's Register Group.

As HEC's first foray into the VR world, we are excited to hear feedback from players. The Centre is committed to utilise new and emerging technologies to bring its collections to life, so make sure to stay in touch to see what our next digital project will be!

Digital