VR gives insane posibilitys.. one of them is digital timetravel..

This "setup" is not for the end consummer yet.. but thats not the point.. the point is.. it's posible.

For easy understanding I will use a living room as examble.

Cover a livingroom whit (lets say 10) 180 degree cams.. have a computer (using some alcorytmes) to put them together to a single VR space.. And store it all.

(could also add some heat/movement sensors on the cams.. (and take a "snapshot" every 5 minutes, when no recording to acount for light changes) for using less HD space) 

In this examble.. lets say we "record" a year.

Now the "livingroom" is recorded in VR.. and put together to a single VR space.. (add some "simple" software for navigation.. voice and gesture controll makes sense)

Take a VR headset on.. And there you have it.. Digital timetravel to any point in time from that day and a year back.


You could say.. "april 15 (2019) 8.00 am" and you are at that point in time.. and see everything 100% precisely.

Offcourse only "digital" so no interagtion.. People and animals will walk right through you.. But you are there.. digital.

Or Use hands geture to scroll through time.. (like Lucy)


With the current boom in VR and 360 cams.. I think that end consumers can do this in under 5 years.. for less than 5000$ (but thats not the point :)

Eddit: Added "degree" to 180.. (becourse I could see that some thourgt i meant 180 cams)

You could say that looking at old pictures is a form of time travel or a room captured from different angles the only difference is you have a 3D digital film that is a bit more immersive.

the tech is already here for years we have had virtual tours of buildings etc.

Yes.. but not really the same.

A virtual tour is not either.. A virtual tour is only one unspecific point in time.. and (as fare as I know) recorded in 360 view.

In this "setup" it's not only a (moving) 360 cam where you can look around.. but more cams placed in a room combined to make it a 100% true VR experinces.. so you can look from all angels and move totally free in it.. (And offcourse also free in time)

 has I said the tech is already here , the only thing stopping it is finding the right application for it because for all the evocation of  calling it time travel it is realy limited from a time perspective it's why we use  time lapse photography because that way you get rid of  all the boring bits.

Ah finally an answer to the age old question, where did I leave my keys.

But seriously 180 cameras, next to my 40 dolby atmos speakers and 200 inch tripple screen setup, where do I sit in the future!

Why do you need VR for that?

Currently what you describe isn't possible due to the insane amount of processing power and storage required to do that. Multiple camera angles x all space x all time.

There are also social consequences with this technology. I recommend watching the Black Mirror TV miniseries, episode "The Entire History of You". If you can see everything everyone said, then forgetting mistakes in a relationship is not possible.

OP has discovered the motion picture. Congrats!

It's not time travel, it's only a fancy playback.

Yes preservation of our world as it is now, is one useage of VR.
200+ years from now, there could be people putting on VR helmets to see what life was like in the year 2016.

The differnce is in a picture, you can only just look at it from 1 frozen point of view.

With film, things move around, but again its just film.

with VR your inside it, the experiance is vastly differnt.

Its almost a certainty that the Museums of the future will have VR headsets, to allow users to experiance certain time periodes.