Immersive VR experience gives insight to notorious London area

Production company offers audiences the chance to learn more about one of the most infamous estates in the capital city.

London-based VR and 360-degree video production company VR City has been named one of Digital Catapult and Art Council England’s CreativeXR teams to watch. VR City received funds to expand its immersive projects and gained access to Digital Catapult Immersive Labs in London, Brighton, North East Tees Valley and Belfast. The projects all use immersive technologies combined with a range of traditional storytelling techniques such as documentary, poetry and theatre.

VR City’s Municipal Dreams project earned it the coveted accolade. The immersive journey is a VR-enabled exploration of the notorious Aylesbury Estate’s complicated history in South East London. The experience uses stereoscopic 360-degree video, photogrammetry and 3D modelling. The project succeeded with support from Royal Holloway University, Creation Trust and IDFA. VR City’s previous successes include Indefinite, a powerful documentary about the uncertainty and despair of the UK’s indefinite detention system. The documentary became the first UK film on the New York Times VR platform, showcased at Sheffield Doc Fest.

VR lends itself to the immersive sphere, creating experiences that would otherwise be impossible to recreate. One example covered by Springwise is a new tool that uses VR to help young patients understand and be less afraid of undergoing medical procedures. Who would have thought that such technology could put a child’s mind at rest in such a tense situation? Elsewhere, VR has also been utilised for immersive 3D data analysis. Data renders in three dimensions, and the company’s teleconference spaces allow global employees to attend the meeting and share information.

This innovation has also been featured in the report ‘The Future of Immersive Content’, which was inspired by recent research conducted by our partner Digital Catapult, the UK’s leading advanced digital technology innovation centre. Download the full report here.