Today Icelandic virtual reality (VR) developer, Sólfar Studios, has announced a charitable donation of EVEREST VR to the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) as part of the Society’s Everest Collection.
The donation aims to support the Society’s charitable and educational work in promoting awareness and knowledge of its historical Mount Everest-related Collections. These will include presentations and demonstrations for public audiences, schools, academic and research communities in the UK, linked to the Society’s Everest Collection.
“As we became familiar with the work of the Society, and the wonderful collection of photographs held in their Everest Collection, we set out to include photographs from the 1953 Expedition within our VR experience such that viewers could gain a stronger appreciation of the setting for this historical moment in mankind’s urge to explore the unknown,” commented Kjartan Pierre Emilsson co-founder and CEO at Sólfar. “The unique ability of VR to transport us to impossible places is something we strongly believe in and we’re deeply honoured that the Society feels VR has this potential to support their mission.”
Release in 2016 for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, Sólfar continued to extend the experience’s educational utility by incorporating 18 historical expedition routes into a real-time 3D map of the mountain that participants can follow at their own pace and traverse the mountain at scales ranging from 1:1 to 1500:1 metres.
EVEREST VR’s donation was made possible by the support of HTC, NVIDIA and Scan Computers, with each company contributing the high performance VR and PC hardware needed to form the system required for EVEREST VR to be displayed alongside the Society´s Everest Collection.
“We are delighted to receive this generous donation and using historic stills imagery from our Everest-related photographic collection within the virtual reality environment provides added context and value for the viewer”, said Alasdair MacLeod, Head of Enterprise and Resources at the Society.
Peter Frolund, VP for VR (Europe) at HTC commented, “Everest VR offers a spectacular journey to the top of the earth, showcasing stunning visual fidelity combined with room-scale technology, which allows players to walk around the virtual space, only possible on HTC Vive. Virtual reality is an incredible tool to explore and discover real life environments few have had the chance to visit first hand, and we are thrilled to support the Royal Geographic Society’s Everest Collection with HTC Vive.”
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