IblueCulture: A Real Time Virtual Reality Dry Dive System

The oceans of the world hide many ancient and contemporary shipwrecks, that contain large cultural and archaeological treasures. Multiple projects are constantly being created, with Cultural Heritage as their focus, but this submerged wealth receives only a fraction of that attention. This occurs mostly due to the difficulty in approach and necessary manpower, equipment, and cost of multiple dives. The iblueCulture system offers an innovative solution to that problem, where, with a small number of total dives, the stakeholders of the site can have an accurate, live video stream of the shipwreck, for both monitoring and exploitation purposes. The system offers a real view of an underwater site and its immediate environs via a waterproof camera system and a detailed, premade 3D model that is constantly updated, as far as color and lighting are concerned, and can be reconstructed and updated live. The advantage of this system is this ability to match the user’s view with what a diver would see, at the same time, so that just as changes occur in the depths, they are represented in the 3D model. The system allows for repeat visits from multiple users, making it ideal for use in museums or information kiosks as an immersive, dry dive experience, and offers constant monitoring, with no need for maintenance.