Beacon virtual environment

Original Unity design and implementation by Paul Bourke
Building models and other asset contributions by Aaron Cross.
Further Unity development and final builds by Nick Oliver.

Funding from iVEC@UWA and ARC Linkage "Shipwrecks of the Roaring Forties: A Maritime Archaeological Reassessment of Some of Australia's Earliest Shipwrecks"

February 2015


The following documents a virtual environment built around Beacon Island circa 2013 before the remaining fisherman huts were removed. The environment is built on the Unity3D game engine and is available for Mac and Windows. It has also been customised for other VR environments such as the Oculus Rift, a large 18MPixel stereoscopic display and on the iDome. It is based upon dimensioned building floor plans, survey data of the topology, photographic orthotextures from the island, spherical panorama bubbles from hundreds of sites around the island and from the interior of every building, actual audio recordings from the island and photogrammetrically derived models. In short, every attempt has been made to include actual assets from the Island.

Quote: Jeremy Green
" Beacon Island is located in the Houtman Abrolhos Island chain, 80 km northwest of Geraldton, Western Australia. The Dutch VOC ship Batavia was wrecked on Morning Reef in 1629 and its survivors landed on Beacon Island. This simulation shows the state of Beacon Island in 2013 when there were fishing shacks that were part of the crayfishing (rock lobster) industry. The shacks were removed in 2015 as part of State Government funded programme to return the island to its original state. The buildings were recorded as part of a Your Community Heritage Grant and also as part of the ARC Linkage Grant: Shipwrecks of the Roaring Forties. "

Screen shots


The main jetty is the landing spot for exploration of the Island.



Island exploration can be performed in a "walking" and "flying" mode.
Navigation documentation can be found here: documentation.pdf



Objects such as the cairn are derived from 3D reconstructions from a large number of photographs.



Photographic bubbles are captured from 150 locations on the island.





An attempt has been made to record/model all artificial features on the island.







All textures on the building models are captured as orthographic photographs.



The interiors of the building are not modelled, however every room is recorded as a photographic bubble.



Also includes a model of Long Island with 9 photographic bubbles.

See also