After more than a month on dry land, our itch for diving is growing day by day. And with most of our diving plans called off for the foreseeable future, we’re doing everything we can to say connected to the ocean.
Yesterday we stumbled upon this Google Earth virtual dive feature, and while it does not replace the real thing, we find it to be a relaxing practice, swimming virtually along a reef wall. Enjoy an afternoon on the reef with Google Earth Dives!
The ocean covers 71 percent of the Earth’s surface, yet only 5 percent has been explored. Discover the wonders found under the sea with Street View imagery collected by Underwater Earth and The Ocean Agency.
Up to 50,000 high-definition panoramic images were taken of the reef that can be linked to create a virtual dive experience. When the rapid-fire images are linked together, users are able to choose a location along the reef, dip underwater and go for a viewer-controlled virtual dive using the street view feature of Google Earth.
Take a dive on the Great Barrier Reef, Philippines, American Samoa, or Indonesia. Swim with a sea turtle on one of my favorite dives in North Sulawesi, Fukui Point.
For these shallow reef surveys scientists using state-of-the-art digital technology to capture images of the reef that can be linked to create a virtual dive experience. Automated technologies for rapidly assessing the amount of coral cover and other life forms will provide a “baseline” for understanding change. The cameras for the shallow reef survey, the SVII, have been specially designed to take 360-degree, geolocated panoramic images every 4-6 seconds while traveling at 4kph.
In 2018 we caught up with the Seaview survey team in action in Sulawesi, where they were re-collecting data after initial reef surveys four years prior.
