Touring IPP’s fusion devices per virtual-reality viewer

ASDEX Upgrade and Wendelstein 7-X – as if you were there / 360° view of fusion research

You seem to be standing in the plasma vessel looking around: Where otherwise plasmas with temperatures of several million degrees are being investigated, with a virtual-reality viewer you can now roam around there.

The viewer gives access at any time to the plasma vessel of the ASDEX Upgrade fusion device at Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching, upstairs, downstairs and in the control room. The plasma vessel of IPP’s Wendelstein 7-X device at Greifswald is likewise always open for a virtual visit, as well as the experimentation hall and the facilities for microwave heating.

Here’s the way to ASDEX Upgrade and Wendelstein 7-X:
www.sonnenmaschine-vr.de and www.sternenmaschine-vr.de

A cardboard viewer or a VR headset provides virtual access by smartphone (with gyro function and acceleration sensor) or directly on the screen of a PC or tablet, depending on the type of viewer used*. And here’s how it works: Select the web address of the device wanted and click there the viewer symbol to select the virtual-reality mode. The screen then splits in two, one bit for each eye, thus providing a spatial image. Now put on the headset or attach the smartphone to the viewer and then you can look in any direction. The VR Setup link on the split screen adapts the image to the smartphone or headset used. Selector switches put you through to the various sites.

The panoramas were photographed by Volker Steger and the VR conversion was done by Eduard Plesa.

* Technical requirements for mobile devices: gyro function, acceleration sensor. Smartphones: Google OS – from Android 4.1; Apple – from iOS 8.