Virtual Tour of the Canadian High Arctic Research Station

Due to its remote location in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, the Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS) is not easily accessible to most Canadians. To help bring this cutting-edge facility to a greater demographic, CIMS created a virtual tour of CHARS in 2017 through to 2018.

To capture the features of CHARS for CIMS’ virtual tour of CHARS, CIMS researchers Abhu Dhanda and Kyle Tousant travelled to Cambridge Bay and used several documentation methods. 360° degree panoramas were created with both a Insta360 Pro camera and a DSLR camera with a fisheye lens and special tripod attachment called a nodal ninja. The main public gallery space was documented with the DSLR by placing the camera with a fisheye lens on the tripod with the nodal ninja attachment. The camera was then rotated to take a photo straight up and two straight down to create a full 360° panorama. By creating the panorama with 15 photographs, details such as the mosaic floor tiling can be captured at a higher level of precision.

The tour itself was made using Panotour and KRpano, but was completed using the latter. The tour is available in 4 languages.

Check out the tour here!