The VR Kiosk is a temporary installation available from May 2017 to September 2017 in Ottawa, Canada. It includes five virtual reality stations that provide visual experiences of areas in the Centre Block that are not generally available to the public. The VR environments feature 360° photographs, building information models, and point cloud data from laser scanning to immerse viewers in the architecture of Canada’s Parliament.

The VR Kiosk is free of charge and located across from Parliament Hill in the shipping container at 90 Wellington Street. CIMS is responsible for the design and execution of all VR content.

The 5 experiences created represent a holistic portrayal of Parliament Hill’s history, digitization, and transition to the current technological era.

Indigenous Virtual Learning Spaces creates a digital space for people to gather and learn about indigenous heritage. This space exists in virtual reality, and allows for a small group to gather, communicate via audio, and experience the space together. The group has one host, who acts as the teacher, as well as the facilitator, with additional options to manage the experience of the group, and what students are able to see and interact with.

The environment that users will share encompasses a winding pathway weaving through a pre-contact forest. Following the pathway, the users encounter the indigenous village, which houses a grouping of longhouses, and village furnishings. The end destination to the experience is the longhouse interior, depicting a detailed recreation of a Mohawk longhouse of the 17th century.

Using the existing digitization of the Scout statue, a VR experience was developed that places Scout at the proposed relocation site on Victoria Island. Users are able to explore a 10’ x 10’ area surrounding the statue. Building on an existing digital environment of the National Capital, the level of detail of Victoria Island is enhanced within Unreal Engine by adding landscaping, site infrastructure, and refining the topography. The VR experience is designed to be portable, easy to set up, and compatible with a VR headset.

The primary narrative introduced in the experience stems from the client’s desire to portray the story of Scout through its proposed relocation. By framing the statue against the urban context of Ottawa, the question of its position in the city is framed to the user

The National Capital Model – Unreal is a project in partnership with the National Capital Commission (NCC) funded by the SSHRC internship program: New Paradigm New Tools.

The project sets out to digitally recreate Ottawa’s physical environment within Unreal Engine 5.1 through the use of point cloud data, to both generate geometry and accurately model buildings, terrain, and city furniture. In addition, the National Capital Model aims to explore and develop functionality that allows for users to interact with the environment, visualize changes in the urban fabric of Ottawa, and gather data pertaining to urban infrastructure.

The extensive use of point cloud data to model a site allows for a holistic recreation of the environment while retaining façade elements, fixtures, or city furniture that is captured through terrestrial laser scanning.

In 2020 CIMS was awarded a two-year Social Sciences Research Council of Canada (SSRHC) Partnership Development Grant for their proposal NAC@50+ – Redefining a National Historic Site – a proposal that has evolved several times over the last 5+ years. Celebrating 50+ years of the National Arts Centre, the NAC@50+ project is bringing the rich history of the NAC to the public through an interactive storytelling experience, titled Chronicles & Conjectures. Experience the NAC from its conception, through its evolution, and into the present, in nine stories.

With three stories in each chapter, we explore these eras from the perspective of a visitor, performer, and staff member of the NAC. Each story has unique objects to discover as you traverse the building-- in-situ art pieces, architectural features, rare archival assets, historical photographs, and recordings, to name a few. The interactive storytelling experience is accompanied by the Virtual Archive, an online library of all the artefacts, archival pieces, photographs, recordings, and documents that make up the stories of Chronicles & Conjectures.