As the Lead Developer, I designed and built an interactive virtual tour of the Bioenergy Research Demonstration Facility (BRDF) at UBC’s Vancouver campus. Since students at UBC Okanagan cannot easily travel to Vancouver, the tour was created to be experienced at the Visualization & Emerging Media Studio (VEMS) on the Okanagan campus. The main purpose is to give Sustainability, Biology, and Engineering students access to this innovative facility as part of their coursework, making the space and its operations accessible through immersive media.
The tour combines stereoscopic 360° images and video, spatial audio, still imagery, and 2D video to create a layered, educational experience. Each Point of Interest (POI) highlights different aspects of the BRDF and its role in UBC’s sustainability goals. I developed the system in the Unity Game Engine (using C#), implementing clickable hotspots for navigation and ensuring smooth transitions between environments.
My role involved addressing technical challenges such as optimizing stereoscopic media for the VEMS’s 3D immersive screen, integrating ambisonic audio, and ensuring compatibility across both the VEMS environment and a WebGL build for Canvas integration. I also collaborated closely with faculty and project partners to translate their educational goals into an intuitive and engaging virtual experience.