GT VR Tour
Next-generation campus tour experience. On the web.
GT VR Tour is a virtual reality (VR) application for people to take a virtual campus tour directly from web browsers.
With the 3D model of the campus plus additional information and graphical decorations presented by multiple kinds of media (i.e. text, images, hyperlinks, etc.), the three-dimensional VR experience offers an intuitive and immersive perspective of the campus, along with information on hot spots and tourist attractions that helps people to learn Georgia Tech’s history and campus culture & tradition, which results in a fun, efficient, and interactive information visualization and story-telling.
It runs on mobile with all WebVR-supported modern browsers, and with real-time location access enabled, users can see what’s around them directly from where they are standing.
It also runs on desktop browsers as a standard web VR application, plus VR headset support as an optional choice for users.
GT VR Tour is developed in A-Frame, a web framework for building virtual reality experiences, which makes our app possible to run on any WebVR-supported browser with outstanding graphical performance. Besides, users don’t need to install any third-party app on their devices, which makes people easier to access our app as first-time users.
Finally, both the VR components for the information and the web elements for navigation and customization made up a user interface specifically designed for our web VR application. The great performance, ease of access, and friendly UI provides users a seamless user experience.
Curious about our design & development process?
Development milestones:
- Rapid prototype in A-Frame
- 3D Model modification using Blender & testing in A-Frame
- Adding contents in the form of text, image, and embedded interactive HTML components
A big project needs a team work.
Junshu “Ted” Liu
I’m the designer and developer of GT VR Tour. Just graduated from Georgia Tech with an M.S. of Digital Media (May 2021).
While making this project, I have not only utilized my web development skills & UX design for web and VR but also learned something new from making a 3D world for multiple user scenarios, and even editing 3D models in Blender – which I only dabble a little bit.
Dr. Jay David Bolter
Dr. Bolter is my advisor of this project.
Dr. Bolter is the Professor and Director of Computational Media program, also from the School of Literature, Media, and Communication. He focuses on the research fields of Digital Media and Media Studies. I took his LMC 6399: Reality Experience Design course prior to the development of the GT VR Tour project. I choose Dr. Bolter to be my advisor of this project because he has a lot of experiences and insightful views in VR/AR/XR (Mixed Reality) development. For more information, please visit Dr. Bolter’s personal website, and his Georgia Tech bio page.
During the brainstorming stage, he gives me a better suggestion and directed me to a more realistic and even better solution based on my initial idea of building a virtual campus tour. Firstly I was thinking about making it in AR, but after our discussion, we’re going to a direction of making it as VR but more interactive, by keeping the location feature that is commonly used for AR interaction.
Dr. Janet Murray
Dr. Murray is on our committee. Her primary research interests are interactive design, interactive narrative, and the history and development of representational media. I attended her LMC 6313: Principle of Interaction Design course.
To learn more about Dr. Murray, please visit her personal site and her Georgia Tech bio page.
Dr. Michael Nitsche
Dr. Nitsche is also our committee member. His research looks into digital spaces, where and how they intersect with physical environments. I was in his LMC 6399 Project Studio:
For details about Dr. Nitsche, please visit his personal website and his Georgia Tech bio page.
Try for yourself!
GT VR Tour is now available at
VERSION / 1.0 (Released May 6, 2021)
PRESENTED / April 19, 2021
PAPER RELEASED / May 6, 2021
POSTED / May 31, 2021
Ted (Junshu) Liu 