A man in the United Kingdom who wanted to see all the sights his country has to offer didn’t let the real world hold him back when he decided to tour the land by way of virtual reality on his stationary bike.
Using some handy technical know-how, the British man hooked up his Galaxy Gear to Google Street View and hit the road, telling The Verge the adventure started because he was bored pedaling away on his exercise bike every day.
“I’d been day dreaming for a while about the possibility of using VR to make it a bit more fun,” he told The Verge. “And now of course the technology has arrived to make it happen.”
It’s not entirely perfect virtual reality experience, of course, as he says the biggest issue is it can be tricky to bike through the Street View world with the way Google compresses depth information.
“Some thing, like buildings, fit very well to this model and look quite solid, but things like trees and hedges and anything lumpy often just looks a mess,” he says.
His goal is to cycle the length of the UK — 1,500 kilometers total — while staying put in his living room. He’s chronicling his trip on his blog and updating it with edited video highlights along the way. The way he’s biking now, he should be finished in about 50 days.
This man is cycling around the UK in virtual reality using Google Street View [The Verge]
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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