Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation

Virtual tours represent an underutilized but promising tool for marine conservation, capable of  immersing users in protected environments and forging emotional connections that motivate stewardship. This project developed a conservation-focused virtual tour of Matlahuayl State Marine Reserve in La Jolla, documenting a replicable process for the broader field. Over 36 scientific dives with a 12-person team from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the project collected roughly 21.5 hours of 360-degree underwater video across six major habitats, which was then built into an interactive tour using 3D Vista software and hosted on a dedicated web server. The resulting prototype successfully demonstrates that a high-quality, video-rich conservation virtual tour can be produced and maintained at relatively modest cost, with  strong loading performance and mobile responsiveness. Future iterations would benefit from establishing a communication strategy prior to diving to improve footage efficiency, and the methodology is scalable, with smaller tours potentially hosted together on a single server to reduce long-term expenses.  

See the virtual tour here: https://lajollaunderwater.com