Dries Buytaert

One of the most stressful experiences for students is the process of choosing the right university. Researching various colleges and universities can be overwhelming, especially when students don't have the luxury of visiting different campuses in person.

At Acquia Labs, we wanted to remove some of the complexity and stress from this process, by making campus tours more accessible through virtual reality. During my presentation at Acquia Engage Europe yesterday, I shared how organizations can use virtual reality to build cross-channel experiences. People that attended Acquia Engage Europe asked if they could have a copy of my video, so I decided to share it on my blog.

The demo video below features a high school student, Jordan, who is interested in learning more about Massachusetts State University (a fictional university). From the comfort of his couch, Jordan is able to take a virtual tour directly from the university's website. After placing his phone in a VR headset, Jordan can move around the university campus, explore buildings, and view program resources, videos, and pictures within the context of his tour.

All of the content and media featured in the VR tour is stored in the Massachusetts State University's Drupal site. Site administrators can upload media and position hotspots directly from within Drupal backend. The React frontend pulls in information from Drupal using JSON API. In the video below, Chris Hamper (Acquia) further explains how the decoupled React VR application takes advantage of new functionality available in Drupal 8.

It's exciting to see how Drupal's power and flexibility can be used beyond traditional web pages. If you are interesting in working with Acquia on virtual reality applications, don't hesitate to contact the Acquia Labs team.

Special thanks to Chris Hamper for building the virtual reality application, and thank you to Ash Heath, Preston So and Drew Robertson for producing the demo videos.