The RSET team had the opportunity to work with a remarkable piece of history: the Vasa in Stockholm, Sweden.
The Vasa was a Swedish warship launched in 1628 during the reign of King Gustav II Adolf. At the time, it was one of the most heavily armed warships in the world, carrying 64 guns on two gun decks.
But its first voyage would also be its last.
On August 10, 1628, Vasa sailed from Stockholm, encountered a gust of wind, heeled over, and began taking on water through its open gunports. The ship sank after traveling less than a mile.
Vasa remained beneath the water for 333 years before being raised in 1961. Thanks to the unique conditions of the Baltic Sea, the ship was remarkably well preserved. Today, approximately 98% of the Vasa is original, making it one of the world’s most extraordinary surviving 17th century ships and the centerpiece of the Vasa Museum in Stockholm.
While millions of people have visited the museum, much of the interior of the Vasa is not accessible to the public.
That’s where reality capture creates an entirely new opportunity.
Håkan Thorén created detailed photogrammetry models of the Vasa’s interior and shared those models with RSET. We used that data to create an interactive experience that allows users to virtually enter and explore areas of the ship they normally could never visit.
Users can move through the interior, experience the scale of the vessel, and better understand what it may have been like to be aboard Vasa nearly 400 years ago.
The experience also works in VR, creating an even greater sense of actually being inside the ship.
The video below provides a brief example of exploring the Vasa in RSET. We added a few characters along the way to provide a sense of scale and context.
It’s a great example of how photogrammetry, reality capture, and interactive simulation can provide access to places that may otherwise be inaccessible.
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