Seeing the seafloor offshore of Delaware opened my eyes to how much we don’t know about the ocean.
I’m chipping away at a project that brings real places in the ocean to a VR headset with scientific accuracy at its root.
What a massive success Coast Day was!
Thanks to those who came out to see the new exhibit.
On the 50th anniversary of Coast Day this year, I debuted a completely redesigned VR exhibit of Delaware Artificial Reef Site #11, also known as Redbird Reef.
I call this new exhibit “data designed.” The user is:
Drifting along the real shape of the seabed (accurate to a few centimeters)
…into a real New York City subway car in its exact place on the seafloor
getting tossed and turned by the live wave conditions
and drifting along in the live bottom current.
The visibility and light are calculated live using a model combining the sun’s position and oceanographic data from autonomous vehicles.
What’s missing?
The fish.
Why?
No data exist for how the fish use the habitat planned for them.
The Subway Car 3D Model
What it looks like in the VR environment
(on the day it was screen grabbed)
About Redbird Reef
Redbird Reef is an artificial reef site planned and maintained by the Delaware Division of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.
The sunken structures at the reef provide habitat for fish like flounder, tautog, and seabass on an otherwise featureless seafloor.
Redbird contains:
>800 New York City subway cars
dozens of shipwrecks
dozens of military tanks
thousands of tons of concrete dumps
a completely unknown amount of fish!!
Vince Capone