This weekend just passed, Viewport Virtual Reality Studios was lucky enough to be given an opportunity to be a part of an exhibition attended by over 25,000 people. The expo, located at the Perth Exhibition Centre, featured the theme of ‘focusing on the future’ and was a perfect opportunity to not only see how Virtual Reality technology is beginning to become an integral part of our everyday lives, but to demonstrate it. Viewport Studios, in collaboration with MECHATRON, brought a gamut of VR experiences ranging from a 6 seater mechatronic Virtual Reality ride to tech demos for the Oculus Rift. Viewport also showcased demonstrations of previous work on the Gear VR, Google Cardboard and HTC Vive. These works included VR Architecture, Virtual Reality Tourism Experiences, 3D 360 High Fidelity Video Capture and VR Showrooms.
The 3 day expo served to prove what we already knew in that Virtual Reality technology is not only a fun and novel experience to the tech savvy, but also incredibly accessible to the general public as many of the people who visited our booth got their first taste of VR and we watched people both young and old take to the technology like ducks to water within a matter of minutes. It just goes to show that age is no barrier to technology- not even the cutting edge variety- when that technology is built the right way.
But it wasn’t all fun and games as Viewport also had the chance to meet and greet a number of industry professionals both from Perth and interstate from fields ranging from Real Estate and Construction to Architecture and Education who marvelled at the Virtual Reality technology we had on display and how it immediately transformed the way they thought about how they conduct their business and interface with clients now versus what they could achieve in the near future.
Ultimately, whether we were watching people explore our custom built apartment complex using Gear VR gaze controls or teleporting through our lovingly made modern home using the HTC Vive, it was a poignant reminder just how far VR technologies have come. It also served as a reminder that as the line between VR and real life blurs, it falls to us to keep pushing the limits of what we can accomplish to make Virtual Reality a key part of the way we interact with the world around us and everything in it.
