Fieldscapes VR

FieldscapesVR is an initial offering from our Fieldscapes - Virtual Field Trips as a Service project. The VR app allows you to walk and fly around an accurate 3D model of Carding Mill Valley in the Long Mynd, Shropshire, England.

The valley is a popular site for school field trips and the application is primarily intended to allow schools to:

- virtually visit the site whilst planning their field trip
- to use as a "virtual drone" whilst on their field trip in order to reach places they don't have time to walk to and to provide a fuller context for their visit
- to use when back at school as part of their further studies and during revision

The model covers about a 2km by 2km area around the valley.

Later versions of the application, and the final version, will overlay teacher-defined educational content onto the model, guiding students through a virtual geography or biology field trip, or better understanding the physical or social history of the valley. The desktop version features far better landscape graphics, which we have had to reduce in quality in order to get better performance on standard smartphones.

The application is very much intended as a "beta" of the final product, so we'd be delighted to hear your views.

The web page is at: http://daden.co.uk/conc/trainingscapes/fieldscapes/fieldscapesvr-google-cardboard
The Facebook group is at: https://www.facebook.com/Fieldscapes-907277346045945/
The Support and Discussion forum is at: http://daden.co.uk/phpbb/viewforum.php?f=8
The Support Wiki is at: https://dadenwiki.atlassian.net/wiki/display/FIEL/FieldscapesVR

The application can be used without a VR Headset in a normal "single-screen" mode but we recommend buying an Amazon Cardboard to get the full benefit (and it makes it a lot easier to use out on the ground in bright sunlight!). If you do need a headset, ensure that you get one which has a button or trigger, as that is (currently) required to use the app in VR mode!