On the April 11, 2005, Transas presented Virtual Ship, created and based on the latest developments in the field of three-dimensional technologies, at the St. Petersburg stand at the international Hanover Industrial Trade Fair.
According to the plan of the St. Petersburg Administration, President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin and German Counselor, Gerhard Shroyder were expected to take a virtual journey aboard this unique starship. The excursion route, created by Transas upon request from the St. Petersburg Administration, included visiting the native city of Vladimir Putin - St. Petersburg, a star-flight to the International Space Station and to Antarctica.
Comfortable seats were prepared for the guests in front of the large cylindrical screen, with three-dimensional images projected onto it. In accordance with the scenario, after a visit to the northern capital and a walk under the bridges, the ship might have been directed towards space, rushing past Russia and Germany. Numerous objects of the future and meeting the guests along their space route, presented the manufacturers from both countries – active participants of Russian-German collaboration. The guests also might have entered the near-Earth orbit, coming closer to the International Space Station and headed for the Moon. The excursion to the virtual space continued by visiting Antarctica, of which Russia contributed a lot in the development. The ship then returned back to St, Petersburg.
The unique starship, developed by Transas, is based on the latest achievements in the field of three-dimensional technologies and is a generalization of the 15 years of company experience in the sector of professional maritime and aviation simulators creation. The aspiration for making the virtual reality available for everyone led to the development demonstrated in Hanover.
As ZAO Transas Maritime Director, Nickolay Moujikov stated: “We wanted to demonstrate the abilities of our high technologies to people who are not related to the marine or aviation spheres. That’s why Virtual Ship differs greatly from professional simulators: the stress is made on the show side. The general principle is interactivity, the possibility to interact with virtual reality in real-time operation mode. And this does not mean passive observation, but full submersion in virtual 3-d space, providing the possibility for the participants to cooperate with an interactive environment”.
The application of the simulation technologies in such quality, as demonstrated in Germany, is a unique example of bringing out high technologies of simulator-building in the consumer market.
During 15 years of existence Transas equipped approximately 300 professional simulation training centers worldwide.