Virtual reality is a technology known and used - also by Carraro LAB - for decades, but starting from 2014 the sector has started a new season, thanks to the release of a generation of high performance VR Headsets.
After an initial experimentation with Oculus Rift, in which Facebook invested 2 billion, theCarraro LAB team was the first in Italy to develop applications for SAMSUNG GEAR VR, in the autumn of 2014 even before the product came onto the US market.
Carraro LAB introduced the first Tablet APP with 360-degree spherical content - Roma Virtual History - presented by Steve Jobs in 2011. Moreover, in 2006Carraro LAB realized the first mapping of a nation (Italy) with Street View technology, which anticipated Google.
Meanwhile, Google has offered Cardboard, the basic cardboard viewer, and other manufacturers, including Sony and Microsoft, have entered the market. The 360 video format is supported by Facebook and Youtube, and allows viewing on mobile devices thanks to the gyroscope.
In Italy, immersive technologies have been successfully introduced at the universal exhibition in Milan. More than 10,000 users a day used the applications developed by Gualtiero and Roberto Carraro for participating regions and countries. It was the largest mass adoption of 2015 virtual reality, one of the world's first Virtual Reality case histories for the general public.
An illustrative example of immersive social media game has been developed byCarraro LAB for the launch of the sixth season of the TV series "Il Trono di Spade" (HBO-Sky Atlantic). The game allows, from Sky Atlantic's Facebook page, to insert your face in the "black and white house", a famous environment of the television series. The game's web address is http://casadelbiancoedelnero.it/
The 3D reconstruction of the "temple of a thousand faces" has created an environment where users find their own face together with that of the protagonists of the series, with an original participatory format. Once the user has found his or her face, he or she can share the three-dimensional link to the point where he or she is located on Facebook.
Carraro LAB has also created a new immersive video spot of new conception. During the 30 seconds of the commercial, users can explore the world of television series 360 degrees, in particular the 3D reconstruction of the temple of a thousand faces.
The virtual fire-fighting course developed for Saef is innovative in several respects: it uses extremely realistic images, adopts sound effects to reproduce situations and behaviours, gives feedback and results to the user. The task of the VR module is the evacuation of an environment where a fire occurs, and the to find the emergency exit, activate the alarm and reach the collection point. Thanks to a series of virtual reality headeset, VR technology is introduced as a test after the classical linear course phase.
Carraro LAB has created numerous digital works in the educational sector, dedicated to the great classics of global culture:
Virtual content has been used in all these publications
The 360-degree video, or immersive video, is an emerging media that allows an exploratory experience within spherical movies. Tourism is a sector very suitable for spherical video, as it benefits from the exploration of environments, and from the immersive re-proposing of travel experiences. The virtual treatment of sporting events and activities is not very different, especially in running and driving sports.
Carraro LAB has produced dozens of 360 videos for tourism. Here is an example, which offers a trip to the tourist experiences in Italy
Virtual reality headset are an effective tool for tourism marketing: