Immerse yourself and discover: For the first time, the virtual reality tour invites prospective students from Germany and abroad to digitally immerse themselves in campus life at Ludwigshafen University of Business and Society. Using high-resolution 360° photo panoramas and aerial photographs with interactive hotspots, users are given a fascinating visual impression of the university. Different viewing angles and zoom levels create new and exciting viewing experiences.
Conditions associated with the coronavirus crisis, such as social distancing rules, online lectures and bans on events, have changed studying at German universities and colleges enormously over the past two years. They also led to restrictions for prospective students to get to know and experience the university of their choice. Against this backdrop, a virtual tour of our university was designed and implemented last year in collaboration with the service provider ASPEKTEINS. The drone recordings were realized by RED Drone Services and the City Marketing Mannheim and LUKOM supported with numerous pictures of the two cities Ludwigshafen and Mannheim to give prospective students a feeling for their potential future environment. Students at the university provided crucial input in the form of seminar papers and feedback discussions to help design the tour to suit the target group.
The university can be explored virtually using 15 high-resolution 360° panoramas and four drone images in 8K resolution, in which there are currently 46 selectable hotspots, providing orientation and information. Using integrated image galleries, text information, hyperlinks and an image video, it presents the university as a modern, internationally well-connected educational location in the metropolitan area Rhine-Neckar. When exploring the university virtually, the user can move freely from panorama to panorama using the hotspots or follow a predefined route via the menu. An integrated map with a site plan also makes it easy to reach decentralized university facilities and completes the overall picture. Information points integrated into the starting panorama give prospective students an impression of the transport links and the immediate surroundings of the Ernst-Boehe-Straße campus.
Other special features of the VR tour include a digital world map in the International section, which provides an overview of all of HWG LU's partner universities, as well as a daily updated virtual menu in the panorama of the canteen. It is also linked to the VR tour of the Neustadt wine campus so that users can move from one VR tour to the next. As the tour is aimed at prospective students from Germany and abroad, it is available in both German and English. The panorama tour can be accessed via all current mobile and stationary devices with internet access and can be controlled using a computer mouse, touchpad, the integrated menu and even VR glasses. As a dynamic project, the tour can be expanded and adapted in the future to create new perspectives and provide a virtual representation of the ever-increasing diversity of our university.
We cordially invite you to immerse yourself in the virtual world of the University of Business and Society and get an overview. Have fun.
Click here for the VR tour of the HWG LU
Technical details: The 360° panoramas, so-called spherical panoramas, offer a viewing angle of 360° in width and 180° in height with a resolution of 7680 x 3840 pixels. The images on the ground were taken using an Insta360 Pro2 VR camera. Using six lenses, images were taken at different exposure levels, stitched together and then processed using Photoshop. The drone was a DJI Inspire2 model, which delivered 48 individual images per panorama. These were also stitched together, edited with Photoshop and the resolution adjusted.
Project details: The virtual reality tour is part of the "EPTRAC - Experience and Passion in Transatlantic Relations and Collaboration" project funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) as part of the "IVAC - International Virtual Academic Collaboration" funding program. The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) supports the "IVAC - International Virtual Academic Collaboration" program with funds from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
Contact:
Ludwigshafen University of Business and Society
Transatlantic Institute
Prof. Dr. Gerhard Raab and Marc Ritter
Tel. 0621/5203-440 or -495
E-mail. gerhard. raab@hwg-lu.de or marc.ritter@hwg-lu.de
