This July 8 in the city of Ovalle the Virtual Reality Application “uniVRso” will be launched and will be available for download on the Play Store platform. 

Strengthening astronomical tourism in the Coquimbo Region through citizen training is one of the main objectives of Univrso, a project of the University of La Serena, through Campus Digital.

Creating four massive open courses on Astronomy topics and a Virtual Reality application that simulates the skies of the star region. 

The initiative financed with resources from the Regional Government through the Innovation Fund for Regional Competitiveness and the ULS, will officially launch the “uniVRso” mobile application this Monday, July 8 at the Astronomy Seminar to be held at the Municipal Theater of the city of Ovalle. 

The activity begins at 15 p.m. and will feature the participation of prominent academics and astronomers from the University of La Serena who will talk about astronomical news in our region. “We are going to talk about what will happen now after the eclipse. We had a peak of astronomical interest in recent days, what I am thinking now is to show what we are doing in the region in the astronomy part, especially data science techniques,” explains Dr. Marcelo Jaque, ULS academic and one of the exhibitors. .

App created with Unity

The uniVRso project is made up of a multidisciplinary team of experts from the University of La Serena, who have developed a Virtual Reality application created with a video game engine called Unity.

In this sense, the Computer Engineer and professional in charge of the development of the App, César Villegas, points out that “we decided to use Unity because of the potential that it offers, being a video game framework, it allows us to manage the graphic complexities and interactions of the different objects in the scene. In our case, it allowed us to work in a three-dimensional environment, where spaces and objects that interact with the user were designed."

In the case of uniVRso, “an example of interaction will be to select a quadrant of the sky with your gaze and the constellation belonging to said sector will immediately be displayed,” says the professional.

In summary, the Project Director and Head of Digital Campus, Humberto Farías, highlights the project as a contribution to the Region. “uniVRso seeks to provide tools to astrotourism operators in the region, with the incorporation of a virtual reality application and 15 kits that will be delivered to different tour operators. This virtual reality application incorporates the latest technological innovations in the development of video games, which seeks to model while maintaining the scientific coherence of the objects observed in the skies of the Coquimbo region.”

He also adds that "The massive courses have a clear focus on citizen training and aim to ensure that people can access scientific knowledge delivered by experts free of charge and at a distance," he said.

The Virtual Reality Application will be available to download on the Play Store platform for free starting in July. To learn more about uniVRso you can visit the page univrso.userena.digital.