Another interesting realXtend application emerged last week when Oulu3D, a company specialized in modeling cities and buildings in virtual worlds, published its Pilvikirkko (“Church in the Clouds”) project. Thanks to their efforts, a small piece of Finnish history is now conserved in virtual reality in the shape of a model of the 250 years old Haukipudas church. The model is now available at www.pilvikirkko.fi.
The site is in Finnish, but getting in is quite simple:
1) Click “Tundra Windows” or “Tundra Mac” on the pilvikirkko website depending on your OS and install the viewer (if you don’t have one (the Admino flavor) already)
2) Sign in with your Facebook account by clicking on the relevant logo or type a username in the textbox on the website.
3) Click on one of the avatar images
Remember what your parents said about proper behavior in a church!
Or click on the lower link (“Kiertokäynti kirkossa”) to open the web/flash version in your browser :) Same base tech as in the Berlin Gallery Weekend earlier, but now with chat and avatars configured off so it’s just a single user experience in the 3d church currently. The base tech of the Flash+client & XMPP-backend is open sourced as realXtend Lehto now (in github), more info and announcement of that coming soon.