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The Thing From My Future: VR postcard

Visit a postcard in VR

Published onNov 17, 2019
The Thing From My Future: VR postcard

The Thing From My Future

Arc: a post-scarcity world where people are preoccupied with the arts and creative expression.

Terrain: Cloning

Object: Postcard

Mood: Unease

Yes my world imagines a future where people have the freedom, the time and the resources to create whatever they want and express themselves in the most presently unimaginable ways. But this also leaves room for people who refuse to create new things, and instead retract, into a silent revolution. Some others dream of a time when historical artifacts were a source of inspiration, and postcards made them dream. This is where the VR postcard gets created.

These people go back to sending each other postcards because they identify most in a time when cities, architecture and space was historically and culturally significant. The Historicists are not only overwhelmed with the amount of new artifacts popping up around them, but they also realize that historical artifacts are either not easily accessible (with new and fast construction happening around them), or have lost their cultural attractiveness - the shinier gets all the attention.

They end up creating a machine that scans postcards dating back to the 19th and 20th century and builds 3D environments to be visited in VR whenever they want.

Theses environments are not identical clones of reality, as they are an amalgam of a specific period in time, with the emotion of the sender of that postcard. Some decide to share their virtual space with other Historicists that can also visit them. They end up spending most of their time in this VR world, where space, history and subjective emotion (on every postcard) becomes intertwined.

How to build this?

Step 1: image segmentation + depth analysis

To recreate an image in 3D, the first step would be to process the segments and the depth of the image.

Step 2: pixel extrusion

The pixels on each depth layer would then be extruded to meet the next layer, creating a 3-dimensional effect.

Step 3: skybox

The skybox would be a random pixel distribution of the background depth layer.

Step 4: Text Mining with Natural Language Processing

To add the subjectivity of the sender, the text would be analyzed to understand its mood, and tone. It would then be recreated as a post-processing style effect.

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