The Mantis team created a VR diving simulator to share the experience of diving a real world cave, which we reconstructed from 360 video. People that have dived the real cave and played the simulator consistently reported how real it felt to dive it in VR.

The combination of 360 video, 3D reconstruction and VR simulation can create powerful immersive and interactive training experiences. The viewer can interact with objects and experience environmental effects like water currents and other forces, and practice their response to them.

The New Zealand Virtual Reality Project (NZVR) was started five years ago to give young Kiwis a virtually real experience of their wild places, particularly underwater. In that time the team has delivered a million VR experiences over web, social and in schools.

“To get the real effect of a virtual experience, you have to feel like you’re really there,” says the project’s Director of Photographer Richard Robinson. “So most of the shots are by remote... hanging a camera under a drone, propping it up on a tripod, swinging it under a mooring float... anything to get the camera operator out of the picture.”