MetaVR Visuals Used in British Columbia Display in Beijing

MetaVR visual systems and 3D virtual terrain are in use at the BC Explorer exhibit at the British Columbia, Canada, diplomatic pavilion in Beijing, China, the host of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Situated near the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, the 21,000 square-foot pavilion, which opened on May 22, highlights British Columbia culture, tourism, businesses and innovators, and promotes the 2010 Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

The Government of Canada has partnered with the Province of BC in promoting all of Canada at the British Columbia Canada Pavilion. For the BC Explorer display (shown below), the Canadian government purchased 6 MetaVR Virtual Reality Scene Generator (VRSG) licenses and 2 terrain generation licenses, through Xpletive, which integrated the visual system of this location-based interactive multimedia production.

BC Explorer exhibit at the British Columbia, Canada, pavilion in Beijing, which uses MetaVR VRSG visuals.

The visual display, which was designed and supplied by Immersive Display Solutions, includes a 2.0-meter diameter hard-shell hemispherical dome coupled with an OmniFocus HAL-SX3 projection system providing SXGA+ resolution at 3,500 lumens. Spherical projection is enabled by a newly developed VRSG plugin, which provides geometrically-corrected imagery at 180° x 135° field of view. The dome provides visitors with a realistic immersive environment with which they can fly over the terrain.

	Detail of the 3D terrain of British Columbia used in the exhibit, rendered in VRSG.

Working with Xpletive, MetaVR built the 3D terrain of British Columbia for this project, using its terrain generation tools. Coastal regions of the terrain were built with MetaVR’s Terrain Tools for ArcGIS, with which coastlines can be digitized and cut out from geospecific imagery. The 3D terrain was built from source imagery of 15-meter and 5-meter resolution with 1-meter insets, and 25-meter post elevation data of the whole province.

     
     BC Explorer exhibit at the British Columbia, Canada, pavilion in Beijing.

As shown in the following image, VRSG Metadesic generates multi-textured, animated, normal-mapped water surfaces in the cutout regions identified as water.

	Detail of the coastal region of the British Columbia 3D terrain used in the exhibit, rendered in VRSG and built with MetaVR's new Terrain Tools for ESRI ArcGIS.

MetaVR appreciates that the Canadian Government had many options to choose from when deciding upon a visualization solution for this exhibit. MetaVR is honored to be chosen to participate in the delivery of this showcase simulation.

BC Explorer display images taken by Xpletive and provided courtesy of Immersive Display Solutions.