Author: Ilse Rombout

Australians will soon be able to go back to the dinosaur age and walk among the prehistoric creatures that roamed our state, thanks to Deakin University innovation. While most researchers spend their days trying to take the world into the future, Deakin researchers have spent months working out how to take us back millions of years. The time warp, however, is in the virtual reality sense, with Deakin engineering innovation creating a VR experience that will allow people to understand what life was like in Victoria more than 100 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The engineers, including Director of Deakin University’s CADET VR Lab Dr Ben Horan and Industrial Design Lecturer and researcher in digital heritage interpretation Dr Kaja Antlej, have teamed up with Deakin Honorary Professor and Swinburne University palaeontologist, Professor Patricia Vickers-Rich to explore the life of the Leaellynasaura, a small dinosaur that lived in Victoria’s Otways. “When dinosaurs inhabited Victoria, the land was inside the Antarctic Circle, so it was often freezing and during winter there was no daylight for weeks at a time,” Professor Patricia Vickers-Rich said. “The small wallaby-like dinosaurs in the area had good eyes, which enabled them to source sustenance in the dark.” To contextualise this experience, Dr Horan said the team was working to create the VR experience using 360-degree video, illustrating both a present-day scene as well as...

...