The Natural History Museum is opening a virtual reality experience designed to replicate diving in the Great Barrier Reef, featuring a narration by David Attenborough.
Visitors will see coral, reefs and sharks on a Samsung virtual reality headset, the Gear VR Innovator Edition, while listening to Attenborough through headphones. The show, which mimics being inside a “state of the art submersible”, lasts for approximately 15 minutes. It follows on from First Life, another VR collaboration between Attenborough and the museum that has run since June.
David Attenborough’s Great Barrier Reef Dive was created by Atlantic Productions and its studio Alchemy VR. It will run from 11 December until at least the end of January in the museum’s Attenborough Studio to coincide with a BBC1 series, David Attenborough’s Great Barrier Reef, which will be screened on 30 December.
Many of the coral species that visitors will see in the VR dive are held in the museum’s collection. A giant Turbinaria coral specimen collected 120 years ago will be displayed outside the Attenborough Studio. In a statement, the museum said that historic corals such as this help researchers understand the past and predict the future response of the reef to environmental change.
Michael Dixon, the director of the Natural History Museum, said: “Virtual reality is a powerful way of transporting us to some of the most extraordinary environments on our planet. We’re always looking for new ways to challenge the way people think about the natural world – its past, present and future.”
Anthony Geffen, the chief executive officer of Atlantic Productions and Alchemy VR, said: “We are continuously innovating and providing more immersive and compelling natural history content. David’s exploration of the Great Barrier Reef is the latest example of this: using a host of pioneering technologies and research to shed new light on this magnificent habitat.”
Visitors will see coral, reefs and sharks on a Samsung virtual reality headset, the Gear VR Innovator Edition, while listening to Attenborough through headphones. The show, which mimics being inside a “state of the art submersible”, lasts for approximately 15 minutes. It follows on from First Life, another VR collaboration between Attenborough and the museum that has run since June.
David Attenborough’s Great Barrier Reef Dive was created by Atlantic Productions and its studio Alchemy VR. It will run from 11 December until at least the end of January in the museum’s Attenborough Studio to coincide with a BBC1 series, David Attenborough’s Great Barrier Reef, which will be screened on 30 December.
Many of the coral species that visitors will see in the VR dive are held in the museum’s collection. A giant Turbinaria coral specimen collected 120 years ago will be displayed outside the Attenborough Studio. In a statement, the museum said that historic corals such as this help researchers understand the past and predict the future response of the reef to environmental change.
Michael Dixon, the director of the Natural History Museum, said: “Virtual reality is a powerful way of transporting us to some of the most extraordinary environments on our planet. We’re always looking for new ways to challenge the way people think about the natural world – its past, present and future.”
Anthony Geffen, the chief executive officer of Atlantic Productions and Alchemy VR, said: “We are continuously innovating and providing more immersive and compelling natural history content. David’s exploration of the Great Barrier Reef is the latest example of this: using a host of pioneering technologies and research to shed new light on this magnificent habitat.”