CHENNAI: People, in and out of the state, will soon be able to embark on a Virtual Reality (VR) journey to witness the pivotal events in Tamil history and heritage. Tamil Virtual Academy (TVA), under the state's Information Technology and Digital Services Department, is planning to create a Virtual Reality museum that would help to bring life to the past by utilising the innovative multimodal visualisation technology in a virtual environment.
As a pilot to this initiative, the academy is planning to develop VR content and house it in web and hybrid mobile technology on two subjects — one from a historical perspective and the other from a literary perspective. They are King Rajendra Chola's naval voyages and maritime trade and the festival of Indra as in Pukar Kandam of Silappathikaram, which is grouped under the five major poetry in Tamil literature written by Ilangovadikalar. The highly immersive VR experience would be around five minutes each and intends to provide the highest level of details, complexity, and sophistication, said the officials. The two projects and a web portal to house them will be created at a cost of `2.7 crore, tenders for which have been invited.
The web portal created would be responsive to multiple screen sizes ranging from handphones to desktop screens. It will be a hybrid platform that integrates elements from VR, augmented reality (AR), and extended reality (XR) into one unified system. The design, development, and implementation of web portal features will be in line with adapting to new changes to basic technologies. The academy has also planned a comprehensive capacity-building programme for the end users to ensure the success of overall implementation.
TVA teaches Tamil through the internet and provides information about Tamil history and culture through the Tamil digital library to the Tamil diaspora across the globe (www.tamilvu.org).
It has also developed websites for the Tamil digital library - www.tamildigitallibrary.in and www.tagavalaatruppadai.in.