March 5, 2019 – VIVE Arts has today announced it is collaborating with the American Museum of Natural History on their new ‘T. rex: The Ultimate Predator’ exhibit.
The exhibition, which will be open to the public from March 11, 2019, to August 9, 2020, features the museum’s first multiplayer, interactive VR experience, as well as life-sized reconstructions of Tyrannosaurus rex at various life stages including the most scientifically accurate representation of T. rex to date, fossils and casts, large-scale projections and hands-on interactives to tell the story of the dinosaur.
T. rex: The Ultimate Predator is the first major exhibition of the American Museum of Natural History’s 150th-anniversary celebration. The Museum boasts one of the few original specimens of T. rex on public display in the Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs. With more than 120 years in dinosaur research and discovery, the Museum is adding a new dimension to this legacy through its collaboration with HTC VIVE, with the exhibition’s virtual reality experience ‘T. rex: Skeleton Crew’
Developed in collaboration with the Museum’s Science Visualization team, VIVE Studios (VIVE’s content development and publishing initiative) and Immersion, the VR experience places up to three visitors within a space similar to the Museum’s Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs, where they work together to help build a T. rex skeleton bone by bone. Once the full dinosaur is complete, players will witness a realistic T. rex come to life before their eyes as the virtual hall transforms into a marshland from 66 million years ago.
“Through VR, visitors can engage with the exhibit in an exciting, in-depth way that enriches their knowledge and leaves a lasting memory for years to come,” said Chris Chin, Executive Director of Education VR Content, HTC VIVE. “VIVE is proud to partner with the American Museum of Natural History to harness the power of premium VR bringing visitors closer to the scale, majesty, and awesomeness of T. rex like never before.”
“American Museum of Natural History is one of the world’s most innovative and forward-thinking museums. The VIVE team worked closely with the Museum’s paleontologists and science visualization team to create an interactive and scientifically accurate representation of T. rex based on the latest research,” said Victoria Chang, Director of VIVE Arts. “We are excited to observe the educational impact of this remarkably engaging VR project as it is experienced during the exhibition and soon globally through VIVEPORT.”
“Virtual reality is a magical realm in which our human perceptions of time and space are suspended,” said Vivian Trakinski, the Museum’s Director of Science Visualization. “In virtual reality, nothing is too small, too big, too fast, too slow, too distant, or too long ago to be appreciated. We hope this technology will let our visitors experience the most fantastic and inaccessible realms of nature.”
As well as being a VR partner of the American Museum of Natural History, HTC VIVE also partners with other arts and cultural institutions such as Tate Modern and Taiwan’s National Palace Museum.
After its museum debut, the home version of T. rex: Skeleton Crew is set to launch this summer on VIVEPORT.
Video credit: HTC VIVE/YouTube
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Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.