Using Drones for Virtual Tourism

Tourism always involves physical movement between places, an activity that may be cumbersome, expensive, or even dangerous. Limited time and budget furthermore represent serious limitations to this popular past time. Virtual tourism is a new paradigm that aims at reducing limitations by recreating real touristic venues in computers as 3D models. In our virtual tourism approach, we make use of available technology in order to result in a fully dynamic way of visiting touristic locations. We use UAVs to fly around at the target venues, and send a video they record live to a tourist that may be sitting at home, or walk along a treadmill. The video is presented in a VR visor, and head movements steer the orientation of the drone.