What do you generally do when you’re bored out of your wits? Maybe listen to some music? Play a new game? Call your friends over? It’s always pretty much the same stuff! Aaron Puzey, a British man took his boredom to another level altogether as he started cycling across the streets of entire UK in (wait for it), Virtual Reality!
Aaron had been sweating himself on his exercise bike half an hour daily for the last few years when one day a brilliant idea struck him like a bolt. Feeling that the routine had become way too tedious he decided to integrate Virtual Reality to his daily workout schedule on the bike. “I’d been day dreaming for a while about the possibility of using VR to make it a bit more fun,” said Puzey which is why he hooked up Google Street View with his Galaxy Gear VR headset and cycling 1,500 kilometers across UK from Land’s End to John O’ Groats.
Fortunately, Puzey had been recording and documenting the entire travel expedition on his blog named Cycle VR in which he regularly updated the videos and highlights of every 100 kilometers. As per Puzey, he is likely to finish his journey is almost 50 days after lengthening the time of his journey on wheels.
When asked Puzey about the problems he faced while pedaling his way across the streets of United Kingdom, he explained how the physical world is constrained is a 3D virtual world and that a major problem is the high degree of compression in Google Street View on the depth information. However, he also went ahead to explain that buildings on the other hand, fit extremely well into the model. Another problem he encountered while cycling is the amount of nausea especially when navigating through complex routes such as roundabouts.
Even though the idea is a breakthrough in itself, Puzey is happy covering his set goal of 1,500 Kilometers for now.
