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The Korea National Park Service launches a virtual reality service on March 28 that gives users a tour of the distant island of Hongdo, a small island off the coast of Geojedo Island.

It is now possible to virtually explore the uninhabited island of Hongdo from the palm of your hand, a small island in the South Sea off the coast of Geojedo Island.

On March 28, the Korea National Park Service revealed its new virtual reality platform that covers the entirety of the marine ecosystem around Hongdo Island. The service offers 360 degree, high-quality views of the island, spanning from its skies to the depths of its ocean floors.

Hongdo Island, famous as a breeding ground for flocks of black-tailed gulls, is designated as a natural monument and as a “special island,” meaning it is off-limits to civilians on the grounds of preserving its ecological resources. The new virtual reality platform therefore gives rare glimpses of the island’s otherwise un-seeable ecosystem.

Accessible from the National Park’s Hongdo Island marine ecosystem website (https://reinfo.knps.or.kr/marineinfo/), the virtual reality images offer aerial, road, deck and underwater views of Hongdo Island. The content can be accessed from a PC or a smartphone, but with the aid of a pair of Samsung Galaxy VR Gear goggles or a Google Cardboard headset the virtual experience can be enhanced tenfold.

In addition to the virtual reality tours, the Hongdo Island marine ecosystem website also has a variety of other resources available, such as interactive 3-D models of endangered species, video footage of marine biology field work, ecological maps of organisms that live around Hongdo Island and nearby coastal wetlands, and other information related to the ecology of Hallyeohaesang National Park.

Chairman Park Bo-hwan of the Korea National Park Service said, “We plan to create more virtual reality content of our national parks, islands, deep water ecosystems and other inaccessible locations so that everyone can appreciate our diverse ecological resources.”

By Lee Hana
Korea.net Staff Writer
Photos: Korea National Park Service
hlee10@korea.kr

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Users can observe over 144 different types of marine species that inhabit the waters off Hongdo Island from the new virtual reality platform.

 

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From the Korea National Park Service’s Hongdo Island marine ecosystem website, users can access the virtual reality platform, 3-D models of endangered species, video footage of field work and other educational and entertaining information about the region.