Virtual South Georgia

What started off as a little zero-budget technical experiment in my spare time inadvertently turned into a bit of an epic. Anyway, I started getting my head around some technical things I wanted to figure out, so it’s all good. Hope you enjoy it.

If there are mistakes regarding place names please let me know (comment form below) – I’ve only been there virtually, but it’s one for the bucket-list.

New 360 video version: work-in-progress:

A preliminary test fly-over of South Georgia, a sub-Antarctic Island. The flight begins at Grytviken, passes three historic whaling stations and then circumnavigates the island. This presents fascinating possibilities for visualizing the historic traverse of the island by Ernest Shackleton in 1916, as well as contemporary scientific data visualization.
It’s just a test at this stage – checking the abilities and limitations of this technical approach. A few issues to resolve.

I will add notes and further visualizations as it evolves.

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4 Responses

  1. Fascinating, thank you. I unloaded oil drums at Grytviken from RRS Shackleton in November 1963, on my way south with BAS. Whales being cut, a rich smell of meat cooking from the try pots, orographic clouds, a rather crazy Norwegian medical doctor. All that apart, looking at this view I am struck by how geology, plate tectonics, upthrust and erosion, create the conditions that determine the possible directions for evolution to exploit. Each set of conditions is unique, but there very few other locations in the Southern Hemisphere with the same conditions as S. Georgia.

    • Peter Morse says:

      Thank you Charles – I am glad – and pleasantly surprised – that this came to your attention – thank you so much for sharing your memory from 58 years ago. Amazing. If there are others you wish to add then they are most welcome. ‘Virtual tours’, whilst great for synoptic overviews and a sense of romance, often miss the sense of tangible lived experience – the grit and grace of a place. Observations like yours suggests a way to address that and how a virtual experience can act as both a spur to memory and a gnomon for place and experience.

  2. Thank you so much for this spectacular viewing. I am privileged to have visited this amazing place a few years ago and have wonderful memories including being stranded on Stromness shore in a Katabatic storm! Very scary but a memorable experience.

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