Comming from the entrance hall, the audience crosses a bridge and enters the interior of the Virtual Oceanarium. With it's volume of 9000 m3, it is the largest tank of real as well as the Virtual Oceanarium and symbolizes the all-uniting open seas. The visitors of the Virtual Oceanarium could now walk through the hallways experiencing a realistic image of the Lisbon Oceanarium and watch fish behind glass panes. Beyond that, Virtual Reality enables the audience to break through the windows and dive into a fascinating computer generated underwater world. The individual appearance, perception and behavior of 25 species is simulated in real-time plus a large variety of plants and invertebrates.
Fish swim separately or in schools, hidden or in the open water.
Pilot fish follow the sharks and clean their skin of parasites. Distributing the simulation system to the multiple processors of a graphics supercomputer Onyx2 Infinite Reality, the simulation and rendering can be done in real-time, that is 25 frames per second and more. By this means, the artificial creatures are enabled to react to the presence of the diver. This distinguishes the real-time simulation from classical precalculated computer animation in movies. Fish get out of the way of the approaching diver or show such bizarre behavior as the porcupine fish, which inflates it's body and at the same time, errects a number of dangerous looking spines.