三家公司将VR推向新领域

We hear about virtual reality’s amazing immersive future on a daily basis. 我们被告知，VR在个人娱乐领域肯定会有巨大的发展. 即使是持怀疑态度的人也承认，它将在游戏中找到立足之地.

但是其他用途呢? VR并不局限于娱乐和游戏，对吧? 一点也不. This article highlights three companies that are pushing VR video into exciting new territory.

狂欢节

National brands are beginning to experiment with 360-degree and virtual reality ads. For a vacation company that already relies heavily on video, this makes perfect sense. Most people take only one vacation a year, so they want to ensure it’s one they’ll remember. The current buzz around VR and its promise of providing a you-are-here feeling sounded like a fantastic opportunity to connect with consumers, 斯蒂芬妮·莱维特-埃斯波西托解释道, 社交媒体和品牌内容总监狂欢节.

“你不可能用140个字来推销一趟游轮, so when the opportunity to use 360-degree or VR video and distribute it on social platforms came about, 我们知道我们必须尝试一下,莱维特-埃斯波西托说.

Working with advertising agency Arnold Worldwide and Helios Productions, 狂欢节 had a small production team shoot 360° video during a cruise on the 狂欢节 Breeze ship. The production was kept small so paying guests were not inconvenienced. The project’s goal was to show people who hadn’t cruised before what they could expect from 狂欢节.

“Because the video was geared to first-time cruisers—people who have never cruised before—we wanted to be able to showcase not only a little bit of the onboard experience, but also the benefit of cruising where you get to go to multiple destinations and do multiple activities in one destination,莱维特-埃斯波西托说. “我们想展示船上的一些关键区域:中庭, the first thing everyone sees when they get onboard the ship; their stateroom, because everyone wants to know what their room looks like; the pool area; our awesome WaterWorks waterslide; a nice area where you can sit and have a drink at the end of the day; and then one of our destinations where you could go snorkeling and sit on the beach.”

嘉年华微风提供一个可选的直升机游览, 所以嘉年华让制作团队也空降了. 这给了该公司一个加入华丽航拍镜头的借口.

拍摄结束后，嘉年华的团队制作了一个2.5-minute interactive promotional video where people can move around the space, 还有一个三分钟的传统视频. The interactive video includes a ship map that highlights different areas to explore, 和有趣的事实与屏幕文字呈现.

狂欢节 distributed the VR ad through Google Lightbox and Facebook. Viewers simply moved their phones around to explore the virtual spaces. 虽然该公司没有最终的数字, 莱维特-埃斯波西托说，到目前为止，他们看起来还不错. Since this is a new area, 狂欢节 doesn’t have specific expectations for the ad’s performance. 这样做的目的很简单，就是为了提高人们对中国假期的认识. Judging by what she’s seen so far, Leavitt-Esposito is sure 狂欢节 will produce more VR videos.

“Within the first few days, we saw so many people saying, ‘This is so cool!’ Tagging their friends, telling their friends, ‘Hey, check this out! 这是我们在假期应该做的事情.“我们真的很开心，”她说.

DeepStream虚拟现实

VR不仅仅是用来玩的. 作为一种减轻慢性疼痛的方法，它具有真正的医学价值. 这很令人惊讶，但临床试验已经证明了这一点. 将这个想法付诸实践是一家名为 DeepStream虚拟现实.

Ari荷兰人, DeepStream的联合创始人兼首席技术官, learned about VR’s role in chronic pain reduction in the late 1990s when he was a graduate student at the University of Washington. He later worked at the university’s Human Interface Technology Laboratory (HIT Lab). Two psychology professors at the university—Dave Patterson and Tom Furness—were inspired by the work of neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran in helping amputees overcome phantom limb pain: Ramachandran had a patient stand against a mirror with his face against the edge, then hold his arm up so that the reflection made it look like he had two arms. Seeing this somehow fooled the patient’s brain into thinking the missing arm was still there, 减轻他的痛苦.

Patterson and Furness decided to see if VR could have the same effect. Hollander helped create applications that let viewers participate in virtual worlds, which were then tested with patients recovering from severe burns. The results were encouraging enough that Hollander soon worked on a more immersive VR application. SnowWorld let users float on an icy river and throw snowballs at animated snowmen. 更多的 than a dozen studies were conducted with SnowWorld, testing its effectiveness in relieving pain.

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