Summary
Bangor University鈥檚 development of Virtual Reality (VR) application Ocean Rift, one of the first and most popular consumer VR apps in the world, has helped spearhead the now burgeoning global VR industry, in partnership with Samsung, Facebook and Google.
Ocean Rift has been an invite-only launch title for most major VR headsets between 2014 and 2019, including the Samsung Gear VR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Google Daydream, Xiaomi Mi, Oculus Go and Oculus Quest. With an estimated 1,800,000 downloads it receives consistent positive reviews by users and developers. The app was based on underpinning research in VR best practices and procedural animation, including new computer graphics and artificial intelligence techniques for producing life-like animation and behaviour. Recent global benefits have been generated from its use in educational and healthcare contexts.
Over the past seven years, VR has grown rapidly from a hobbyist emerging technology to a multibillion-dollar industry. Research undertaken at Bangor University has been at the forefront of this process.