Introduction:
A comprehensive virtual immersive tour of Butchers Coppice Scout Camp and Community Outdoor Centre has been successfully completed. It is one of our largest projects so far using over seventy panoramas, to allow Bournemouth Scouts to convey the true value of their asset.
Benefits:
• Advertising – Butchers Coppice can advertise their campsite, buildings and activities to local businesses, education establishments and social groups who may not be aware of all the facilities available. Furthermore, groups from a larger geographical area who cannot visit before booking can use the tour leading to a potential increase in bookings.
• Virtual Site Visit – Groups can view the campsite and choose a field site to meet their needs more effectively, increasing customer satisfaction during their stay.
• Planning and Risk Assessment – For those not able to visit the centre before attending, the virtual environment allows for forward planning and risk assessments to be effectively created, specific to their groups needs.
• Communication – The site is run by a volunteer crew, who need to operate both the reception and site as a whole. The virtual tour will allow them to effectively communicate tasks they may previously have needed to navigate around the site to explain, increasing the satisfaction level of those using the establishment as it allows them to increase the number of people they are able to assist. Providing a standalone hosting environment as an extension to the project will also increase the speed of this.
• Future Development and Tendering– The administration at Butchers Coppice will be able to use the virtual environment for future planning of new activity or accommodation assets at the site, engaging early and effectively with contractors allowing them to easily view proposed locations and providing richer tender proposals. Important for an establishment reliant on volunteers, for who time can be short.
Project Content:
The creation of this tour has been a challenge of implementing and improving our immersive environment software architecture, resulting in us proudly being able to present a high quality virtual environment. Providing the right branding was key to the professional output, working closely with the client’s style guide and our in-house surveyor and cartographer we were able to provide a fit-for-purpose communication platform.
The tour is extensive, giving those with time the ability to fully immerse themselves in the excellent facilities at Butchers Coppice. It became apparent though that the client had a lot of fantastic activities and assets to display and it was vital for these to be easily accessible to the user. To solve this in this tour we implemented a drop down thumbnail bar to easily jump to a specific activity or facility, combined with our in-house created map, a user can quickly navigate the environment.
Potential Future Projects
These virtual environments can deliver repeated value, by adaptation to specific requirements of the client. Some future additions we have identified as potentially being useful are:
• Activity Information – Augmented information into activity locations to provide the user with easily accessible information on requirements, max numbers, cost etc.
• Virtual Risk Assessment – A tour specifically designed to identify hazards and control methods to aid risk assessments for visitors to the site.
• Virtual Training Environments – To provide easy briefing on the setup of activities that can be self-run, possibly incorporating video elements. Also for instructor run activities, specific setup guidelines can be communicated for new trainees or for inducting qualified instructors new to the centre.
• Asset Monitoring – Repeated captures would allow for the monitoring of asset and comparison analysis to provide data on the longevity of equipment and hence future financial forecasting to keep the centre in the safe, fun and professional environment it is today.
Contact:
We are offering free virtual tour trials during mid June-July 2015.
Contact us on: m.rake@rbgeomatics.co.uk
Follow us on twitter: @RBGeomatics