Virtual reality’s web presence is heating up. In separate announcements, two of VR’s most prolific online companies are celebrating big milestones.
The first comes from Sketfchfab — which is announcing 1 million scenes live online — and the second is Matterport — which is announcing over 250,000 spaces published in virtual reality. Let’s break these down one at a time shall we?
First, there’s Sketchfab. In its essence, Sketchfab is attempting to do for online 3D models what YouTube did for videos. Sketchfab models are somewhat interactive and can be embedded online. Take a look at the example below.
These 3D models are clearly impressive enough on their own merit, but their real hook is in their VR compatibility. Sketchfab models can be viewed in VR with the appropriate headset, which effectively makes this platform the most varied immersive content provider on the Internet. Sketchfab hosts content from more than 600,000 contributors and offers support for all major VR headsets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebyz8xxoK1w
Founded in 2011, Matterport is an immersive technology company built on mapping real places as 3D models. The Matterport founder’s vision is to have a complete virtual model of the world and their $4500 3D sensing camera is helping to make it a reality. We mentioned the company as one of the premier AR and VR companies leading the charge and now Matterport is making 250,000 3D spaces you can check out in VR through a new CoreVR program.
Matterport revealed they would be publishing over all those space with their new CoreVR option and will continue to offer this option through 2016 — for free. After 2016, the CoreVR option will be available for $19 per new 3D space.
Matterport’s 3D camera has been used to map a vast collection of places, from a Maori village in New Zealand to a huge lava tube in Hawaii. There are even vehicles to be explored in their gallery: a yacht in Vancouver, the first Boeing 737 plane, and a lavish Mercedes g-wagon limousine.
CoreVR will be available on Matterport Apps on Google Cardboard and the Samsung Gear VR with more platform options “coming soon.”
Charles Singletary contributed to this report. Featured image credit: Crunchbase
