For many years, Aaron Puzey had been toiling on his exercise cycle, around 30 minutes a day. Bored with his exercise ritual, he hit upon a brilliant plan to spice up his routine workout experience.
Puzey is a video game developer from the UK who used VR to infuse fun in his exercise time. He developed an app for the Samsung Galaxy Gear VR headset. The app allows Puzey to connect his VR headset to the Google Streetview.
Thus, whenever he is riding his exercise bike, he gets to enjoy various landscapes and varying terrain across the country.
Developing an app that could download 3D data from the Google Streetview and feed it to the VR headset was the hardest part of this project. Puzey taped a Bluetooth cadence monitor to his exercise machine to measure its RPM and transmit the recorded data to the VR headset to move ahead on the route.
Of course, the app isn’t too perfect. “The high compression on the depth information” makes complex scenery like the trees appear like a total mess. However, the experience is so gratifying that Puzey has gradually been lengthening his exercise sessions.
Puzey ultimately wants to cycle through the entire length of the United Kingdom from Land’s End to John o’ Groats, nearly 1500 kilometres. He hopes to make it in the next 50 days! Puzey is updating the videos of his pedalling sessions on his blog, the Cycle VR. Once he reaches his current goal, Puzey will embark upon a cycling journey across Japan.
