Explore Notre Dame from your couch with Baidu's new VR experience
The Chinese search giant released 360-degree panoramas of the burned Paris cathedral viewable with VR goggles
Images of flames over Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris this week shocked the world. For those of us who haven’t had the chance to see the real thing, Baidu has launched a virtual reality experience of the cathedral that is viewable through VR goggles or Google Cardboard.
The effort is part of the Baike Museums Project, which seeks to digitize museums around the world and make them accessible to users who cannot travel to see the artwork themselves.
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Although 360-degree images rely on similar technology when combined with a headset, they’re not exactly VR. However, Baidu has explored other projects using AR and VR tech with its video platform iQiyi, also known as the Netflix of China.
Baidu and iQiyi also unveiled a VR headset in 2018 called the Qiyu VR II, which plays 4K videos and 8K panoramic videos.
Baike Museums is a different kind of project, however. Baidu’s museum digitization effort includes the Gaudi House Museum in Barcelona, Spain with VR videos and high-resolution 360-degree photos. The project has digitized artefacts from museums across China, too, including the famous Terracotta Army discovered in Xi’an in 1974.
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