On this project I worked as part of the Framestore VR team to take a physical school bus and transform it to a virtual trip to Mars.
We used Unreal Engine along with proprietary networking and control software to create the experience. At each school the bus visited a group of students would board the bus and see Mars displayed on massive screens in the cabin of the bus. As the bus drove around the displays would move to match via the use of GPS tracking, Laser Speed monitoring, and Accelerometer data.
The front and back of the bus were obscured from view making Mars the only thing visible from within the bus.
My contributions to this project were the following:
- Developed a system to take OSM Data and send it through several programs to create a World Machine compatible set of tiles to be used to create the terrain for the application
- Implemented UE4 client-side movement based on GPS data using the GPS-accurate map generated earlier in C++
- Implemented server controls for experience in Python and PyQT including build distribution, starting/stopping, realtime tuning, and static playback along with on-site configuration mechanisms
- Trained new users on usage of server controls and optimized the controls to be intuitive
- Assisted on-site on multiple trips to ensure the systems were working correctly and debug software and hardware issues which arose
More information on the experience is available here:
