The American Museum of Natural History has partnered with HTC Valve to create an interactive, multiplayer virtual reality (VR) experience entitled “T. rex: Skeleton Crew,” featured in the exhibition T. rex: The Ultimate Predator. The exhibit is for open to visitors ages 12 and up until August 9th, and allows museum goers to build the skeleton of a T. rex as a group, and watch it come to life when completed.
“I think one of the opportunities of virtual reality is to really mix the science and the magic,” said Vivian Trakinski, the museum’s Director of Science Visualization.
From the beginning of the project, it was important to ensure that visitors would not enter a VR space in isolation: they wanted the families coming to the museum to be able to work together within the experience.
“We really feel that bringing this immersive technology and VR into these spaces allows you to visualize, experience art, science, history, and culture in ways that you could never experience before.” said Chris Chin, Executive Director of VR Content at Vive.
This experience is very reminiscent of other museum extended reality (XR) experiences, such as the Air Force museum’s D-Day augmented reality (AR) experience for the 50th anniversary of the event.
