I slipped on the goggles and all of a sudden, even though I was sitting down, I was so much a part of the scene before my eyes that I wanted to reach out and touch the yacht table in front of me. Then I wanted to walk up one step to cross the salon. But there was no table; there was no salon.
In reality I was sitting on a second-floor room at the Bahia Mar Hotel during the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, testing a new pair of 3-D goggles that Vripack developed with Nordhavn to offer virtual reality tours of new yacht interiors and designs. The experience was so real that I think everyone would want to do it.
Vripack Yacht Design, based in the Netherlands, developed the Oculus Rift VR goggles for Nordhavn so that customers can immerse themselves in three-dimensional spaces and visualize the interiors (or exteriors) of their new yachts. You can see exactly how textures and colors and solids will look, room by room. The goggles place you inside the room, and create an experience that is totally different from looking at a printed rendering, even a very good rendering.
The pairing of Nordhavn and Vripack has started with the interior design of Nordhavn’s new 80-footer. Jim Leishman, Nordhavn’s co-founder, said the 80’s hull has just been released from the molds. Vripack has designed a Scandinavian chic interior for the 80, a departure from the traditional Nordhavn look (see picture above).
Leishman said that Nordhavn and Vripack want “to offer our clients the most comfortable, safe and luxurious expedition class yachts available. We look forward to a long and successful relationship with new and exciting projects and virtually no limits on what we can accomplish together going forward.” Vripack also brings the ability to design and build larger yachts, 100 feet and up, including the possibility of building Nordhavn’s first steel boat. For more:
