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Dilara Albayrak
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VR Application for Virtual Moon Visit based on NASA LROC Data

The project involved developing a realistic 3D model of the Moon’s surface and integrating it into a VR environment, allowing users to experience a virtual lunar exploration.

Code Link HQ Model Link
Unity
OpenCV
Python
C++
GDAL
Virtual Reality
Neural Networks
Shader Graph
Blender
Image Processing
Moon VR

Lunar region from Apollo 11 landing site
by Dilara Albayrak on Sketchfab

Project Overview

  • Collaborated as part of a team to develop a VR application based on a detailed 3D model of a selected lunar region, aiming to make the surface digitally explorable.
  • Took primary responsibility for generating a high-fidelity terrain model of the Moon, focusing on accuracy and visual realism.
  • Utilised NASA’s LROC Digital Terrain Model (DTM) data ↗ processed through the GDAL library in Python and C++, to reconstruct the surface geometry.
  • Incorporated high-resolution orthographic imagery from the same dataset to enhance visual detail, particularly for texturing purposes.
  • Applied a series of image processing techniques using OpenCV and NumPy to refine the orthomaps, these included delighting, noise reduction, and other enhancements to improve texture clarity and consistency.
  • Further improved texture resolution by applying a GAN-based super-resolution method ↗ increasing visual fidelity for VR rendering.
  • The model showcases a 1024m × 1024m section of the lunar surface. A lower-resolution version is viewable via the Sketchfab embed above; high-quality textures and the enhanced version can be accessed through the download link provided below.
  • Finally, the data-driven Moon model was integrated into a Unity VR application and successfully deployed to the Meta Quest 3 headset, allowing for an interactive and immersive exploration experience.