Observatoire astronomique de la Marine de Nantes - Modern Visit

L'Observatoire astronomique de la Marine de Nantes (shortened as La Tour) is a project consisting of two VR and two AR experiences developed by bachelor students of e-artsup Nantes. Currently available at the Jules Verne museum in Nantes, the goal is to allow a virtual visit of the city's Marine Astronomical Observatory (designated historical monument) and its surroundings. Several eras are available and reproduced as realistically as possible thanks to the involvement of a historian specialized on the site in the project.

The Modern Visit experience allows to safely visit the tower and its multiple rooms as it is today, thanks to the use of 360° pictures. Combined with the 1850 Visit experience, it is possible to switch from one era to the other and get information about everything inside, whether it still exists today or not.

    Anecdotes:

  • The project was developed for a museum which didn't have a lot of budget to invest in VR equipment, and it had to be playable by anyone visiting it (even with physical disabilities), so I had to take these contraints into account early on. I made a first iteration using, aside from the headset, only a remote control with a single input, before removing the need for it by using extended staring as the input.
  • The project had to use 360° pictures for the environment, which was a source of issues if used as skyboxes. I had the idea to put them on the inside face of a sphere, with the player inside it, which has been very practical to adjust the rooms scale and to make transitions between them more fluid.