We’re under no illusion that a project like this can be created without extensive resources. It gives you an experience of the universe in VR and the overall project. If you’re interested in learning more, there is a short three-minute video on the goals of the project:Īnd for a deeper dive, the staff at EPFL put together a twenty-minute movie, Archaeology of Light, which was made with VIRUP platform and can be watched on flat screens or below in 360 video. ![]() You can download it from Gitlab, though as an early version, it will require some tech skills to get it set up (EPFL helpfully provides detailed installation instructions ). It will generate data of the universe in petabytes (1,000 terabytes or 1 million gigabytes) in addition to the other research projects underway. If you think we’re drowning in data now from astrophysics research, just wait until the Square Kilometer Array comes online in 2029. With the exponentially increasing amount of data we are gathering from current space exploration initiatives, it will remain up to date. The goal is that it will continue to evolve, creating an ever-expanding experience of the universe in VR that can be used for teaching and research, and shared with the broader public. VIRUP is a C++/OpenGL/Qt flexible Free Software built on top of a custom-designed graphics engine. Unlike so many of our VR experiences, VIRUP is built on free software. But when it comes to potential data, the sky is literally the limit: Future databases could include asteroids in our solar system or objects like nebulae and pulsars farther into the galaxy. at least 4,500 known exoplanets, tens of millions of galaxies, hundreds of millions of space objects in all, and more than 1.5 billion light sources from the Milky Way alone. a complete scripting system relying on a python wrapperĪs Jamey Keaton points out in the Denver Post, that adds up to.The project currently includes the following features (with more to come): ![]() The novelty of this project was putting all the data set available into one framework, when you can see the universe at different scales-nearby us, around the Earth, around the solar system, at the Milky Way level, to see through the universe and time up to the beginning-what we call the Big Bang. According to Jean-Paul Kneib, director of EPFL’s astrophysics lab, VIRUP is a multi-platform VR environment that draws upon a wide range of data sets. And it’s a model for the way we’d like to see major universities embrace virtual reality. ![]() Called the Virtual Reality Universe Project, or VIRUP, the project is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and is remarkable for its broad scope and open framework.Īs VOA put it, it’s a reimagined Google Earth for the universe. But experiencing the entire universe in VR has just taken a huge step forward with an initiative from a university in Switzerland, the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL). More recently, Mission: ISS gives you a taste of astronaut life without having to fork over the $200K-$300K for a quick ten-minute trip aboard Amazon founder Jeff Bezo’s Blue Origin. Eliza McNitt’s groundbreaking Spheres-Songs of SpaceTime remains a favorite of ours for linking storytelling and cosmic black holes. While Google Earth VRis one of the most compelling VR experiences of our planet, we haven’t lacked for virtual experiences of space.
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