Senior Design Team sdmay21-19 • Take a Virtual Hike

Project Poster:


Project Overview:
The COVID-19 pandemic is mentally and emotionally stressful, and has limited opportunities for activities such as vacationing and connecting with nature. This project aims to create an explorable, full-scale three-dimensional virtual nature environment for the purpose of relaxation and stress relief in the stressful time of COVID-19. Planned unique features include a 1:1 scale with reality (how big should that virtual mountain REALLY be?) and elements of procedural generation. Due to these features, the direct use of a low-level graphics API, Three.js, is expected, and various memory and CPU optimizations may need to be employed to achieve satisfactory performance. Programming languages may include javascript or others.

Project Statement:
To get this project done, we will be using the Three.js graphics API to design the world. We will design all aspects of the world on a 1-to-1 scale with real life, such as trees, mountains, clouds, etc. We will create an algorithm using procedural generation which will help generate all aspects of the world randomly so that everyone's world will be unique every time they play. We plan on implementing a fly-through mode and a walk-through mode so that the users can choose either one to explore the world. We expect our application to run at 30 fps with no visible choppiness or lag. Lastly, if we have ample time, we will implement a nature themed soundscape to the application as well.