Recent research using the Unity Game Engine for Antarctic visualisation:

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To download the demo for your web browser (windows or mac) please read the following:

This is a Virtual Tour of Mawson's Hut at Cape Denison (v0.1), arising from some recent research at WASP (UWA) by Peter Morse and Paul Bourke. It is very much an alpha release - so it's a sketch of what can be done ( so, be careful and don't walk into vertical poles - there are a few spots in which you can get "stuck" and you'll have to re-load the page - something for version 0.2 to fix up.)

You will need to download the Unity Web Player Plugin (opens new window) in order to explore the environment (it works for Windows or Mac) - it's about a 3MB download for the Unity Web Player.
You will be prompted to download the plugin from the demo page if you don't do it from here.
The Mawson's Huts Virtual Tour Demo is about 12MB download, so you need to have a decent broadband connection and a recent computer with a decent graphics card to play it.

How to Explore:
1] Look around using the mouse - walk into a "bubble" and look around!
2] Move forward and back using the "w" or "s" keys on your keyboard (or the arrow keys).
3] Jump up and down using the Space Bar (you'll need this to get back into the Hut).
4] Make sure your speakers are on - audio makes a difference.

Proceed to Mawson's Huts VR Demo
The demo is hosted at petermorse.com.au - to open in a new window click

Mawson's Huts Virtual Tour Demo here

Feedback is welcome.
My impression is that this an extremely effective way of imparting spatial information to participants - where things are, how they look, and, prospectively, analytical (GIS) and forensic data (archaeological/conservation information.) There are many possibilities.

I imagine Frank Hurley would have thought this was pretty cool - after all, he took dozens of stereo photos, so he was really trying to capture "presence" - something that transcends the time between now and then. For different, utilitarian reasons, perhaps Mawson would have too.