VR Marquette: 360 Degree Library Tour
360-degree video, also known as immersive video, is a recording made with an omnidirectional camera that captures every direction of an area. The omnidirectional nature of the recording allows a viewer to look in all directions and creates a sensation of “being there” that researchers call psychological presence, and it is the fundamental characteristic of not just 360-degree video but also virtual reality.
Once the domain of hobbyists and Hollywood Avant Garde, the cost of equipment required to create 360-degree videos has steadily decreased over the past decade as have the viewers needed to experience such videos, one can purchase a cardboard VR viewer for your smartphone for less than $10. Another indicator of 360-degree videos rise in popularity is that both YouTube and Facebook support uploading 360-degree videos to their platforms.
In the corporate world, 360-degree video is being used to improve new employee onboarding by creating valuable experiences that may be too expensive or difficult to experience in real life. The Samsung onboarding program offers a recent example of how 360-degree video can be used to onboard new employees. Instead of a costly trip to South Korea, Samsung’s home base, the company developed a 360-degree video tour of the Samsung Innovation Museum and to improve cultural awareness and proper business dinner etiquette, an immersive dining experience at a traditional Korean BBQ restaurant.
Based on the success of corporate onboarding using 360-degree video, the Lab partnered with Marquette’s Department of Digital Learning media team to create a 360-degree library video tour. The target audience were incoming students and faculty aimed at reducing the amount of effort these newcomers to the organization have to exert to learn about library services. It also offers a way to socialize these newcomers to the library as one of the leaders on campus when it comes to digital scholarship and utilizing new technologies, leading them to seek out partnerships with the library in their own teaching and scholarship.
While the Lab had developed video library tours before, this would be unique in that viewers could immerse themselves in the space and be able to look in every nook and cranny. They could scout out a study location on the Bridge before they have even seen it in reality. The script has been written in a conversational and welcoming tone and aims to highlight exciting and useful spaces in the library.
The experience lead to some insights into 360-degree video production:
Hiding the crew — Since the omnidirectional camera captures everything in the field of view the person operating the camera can be easily found if one just looks around. To solve this challenge the media team came up with the novel approach of putting the camera on a construction helmet which was worn by the camera person. This not only hide the camera person from being captured on video, but also allowed them to move the camera within in a space.
Editing is not an option — The camera will capture everything in view so editing becomes impossible. One needs to plan accordingly and get everything in one take.
Think in four quadrants — Unlike traditional video in which the camera is focused on one area and all of the action happens in that direction, a 360-degree video captures action in all four quadrants of view. The script should be written in second persons, i.e. “Look to your left to see the circulation desk.” The power of 360-degree video is the ability to make a space come alive. For example, when shooting the Special Collections and University Archives space, the area around the camera was populated with various items from the collections. This made the entire area around the camera engaging, so if a viewer wanted to look around, they would not only see what the space looked like, but could view various items from the collection too.
You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat — The tour is around 14 and a half minutes long but the file size is a couple of gigabytes. If you plan on doing a lengthy 360-degree video ensure your computer and editing application can handle it and you have ample storage to save it to.
Now grab a cardboard headset, drop in your smartphone and check out the VR Library Tour.
