From one continent to another in one click. Researchers from the University of Milano-Bicocca have decided to make fossils, craters and geological sites usable in virtual reality
From Greece to Iceland, from Italy to the Maldives. All in one touch. Students, researchers or the simple curious will be able to find themselves, with a click, on the slopes of active volcanoes, on the ocean floor, along active fault lines or inside volcanic calderas. Real environments photographed with drones and usable through virtual reality directly from home.
The staff of the Virtual Reality Laboratory for Earth Sciences – GeoVires (https://geovires.unimib.it/) of the Department of Earth Environmental Sciences of theUniversity of Milan-Bicocca has in fact decided to make available forty virtual geological sites, called "Virtual Outcrops", to make geological sites in various parts of the world explorable in the first person. It will thus be possible to carry out real geological excursions through virtual reality or 360° videos, using special viewers connected to smartphones or PCs. Those who don't have viewers can still explore the sites in three dimensions.
Each Virtual Outcrop is enriched by a specific explanation, in English, and by an indication of the scientific publications of reference, so as to guide users through the fruition and understanding of the geological site. Many scientific aspects that can be "studied": from active tectonics to volcanoes, from the seabed of the Mediterranean Sea to the coral reefs of the Indian Ocean up to the fossils in the laboratory. The sharing of Virtual Outcrops will continue even after the pandemic, with the aim of making science available to everyone. It will therefore always be possible to explore sites which, in many cases, would be difficult to reach due to their location in remote regions of the planet.
≪We believe - he explains Fabio Bonali, one of the creators of the initiative and researcher in structural geology - that never as in this period is it important to share useful material to spread knowledge, making it usable and usable by as many people as possible, especially using virtual reality techniques. Hence the decision to set up the website, in collaboration with other Italian and foreign institutions and organizations that have been working on virtual reality for some time within shared projects≫.
At the Italian level, the inter-university consortium is collaborating with GeoVires Lab CRUST University of Insubria of Varese andEtna Observatory - INGV of Catania; internationally theUniversity of Athens andEuropean Geoscience Union.
≪The Cartography and Drones Laboratory of the INGV Etna Observatory - he explains Emanuela De Beni, INGV researcher who participated in the project together with her colleague Massimo Cantarero - made available to the colleagues of the staff of the Virtual Reality Laboratory for Earth Sciences of the University of Milano-Bicocca a series of "virtual outcrop" models created using SfM (Structure from Motion) photogrammetric techniques for their diffusion in reality virtual. For years now, drones have shown great potential as indispensable tools for environmental monitoring, scientific research and dissemination. We are therefore proud to share the products made with other colleagues, with the common goal of increasing the possibility of visiting unique and geologically very interesting sites such as those that characterize the Sicilian territory>>.
GeoVires Lab was born from the experience gained in two previous projects, Argo3D (http://argo3d.unimib.it/) and 3DTeLC, coordinated by Alexander Tibaldi, professor of structural geology. On that occasion, software was developed aimed at allowing the students of Milano-Bicocca to use immersive virtual reality for future geological studies, with navigation on very high resolution models capable of guaranteeing innovative and engaging teaching.
≪This laboratory represents an extremely innovative scientific communication initiative, based on the use of very high resolution images taken by drones during a series of research expeditions in Iceland, on the island of Santorini and on Etna, at which I recently attended - he says Federico Pasquaré Mariotto, Professor of Communication of Environmental Emergencies at the University of Insubria -. It is a virtual teaching strategy that is particularly suitable for use during periods of lockdown, but which will probably represent one of the cornerstones of teaching in the geological and environmental fields even after the return to normality≫.
