# The VIRTUALDiver Project. Making Greece's Underwater Cultural Heritage Accessible to the Public
## 1 Introduction
The Ocean Maps company has created a series of applications for virtual diving, specially designed for divers, with scheduled routes providing additional information about the underwater terrain and sea life [20]. The Underwater Virtual Museum--Underwater Malta, is a platform that gives the opportunity to investigate shipwrecks around Malta in a Virtual Reality environment [21]. Finally, the company 360\({}^{\circ}\) Virtual Tour Co. has created the Underwater Coral Reefs in 360\({}^{\circ}\), where the user can navigate through coral reefs in Palmyra Coral Gardens using 360\({}^{\circ}\) photography technics [22]. The bibliography on such matters is growing rapidly [23; 24; 25; 26; 27; 28; 29; 30]. In almost all of the above cases, VR \"dry dive\" experiences were designed using all available technological and methodological tools in order to provide an immersive cultural experience that would engage the user with as many of the stimuli of a diving visit as possible. In this context, the VIRTUALDiver project was developed as an integrated interactive platform for exploring natural (AR) and virtual (VR) environments in areas of touristic and environmental interest (e.g., unique geomorphological structures, shipwrecks, sunken harbors and parks, marine parks, NATURA areas, etc.) in order to enrich travel experience and promote specific and diverse forms of tourism. The language compatibility of the platform in its pilot version will be English. Partners from various backgrounds were engaged in this endeavor. The Faculty of Geology and Geoenvironment [31], leading this research project, is a part of the School of Sciences of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. The aim of all undergraduate and postgraduate programs of the Faculty is to develop an enthusiasm for the geosciences and environment, thus as to educate students on meeting scientific challenges through a learning experience provided by academic personnel with an important role in the international research forefront and a wide variety of research activities with emphasis on excellence, innovation, and interdisciplinarity. TETRAGON S.A. [32] specializes in a broad spectrum of fields, such as innovative product research and development, digital and interactive applications, audio-visual productions, methodologies, services and technologies for the documentation, showcasing,and promotion of cultural heritage and tourism, as well as consulting, design, and construction of cultural spaces, museums, and environmental infrastructure. Up2 metric P.C. [33] develops innovative custom software solutions and provides consulting engineering services in the fields of computer vision, photogrammetry, machine learning, remote sensing, and metrology. Steficon S.A. [34] is a 360\({}^{\circ}\) global full-service digital agency that manages Internet brands, consisting of a team of long-lasting professionals with fusion skills such as creative thinking and design, digital and performance marketing, development of high-end ICT web, mobile applications, and video production. All the above collaborated in order to provide a successful educational and entertaining cultural product. Significant, multi-temporal, validated knowledge, information and data from the university partner guarantee a detailed, high-resolution mapping of the underwater and terrestrial relief, which was carried out with state-of-the-art technologies (swath mapping systems, underwater vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles), creating a synthetic topographic relief basemap and analyzing all its particular geomorphological and ecological structures as well as all anthropogenic interventions. Through a set of specially designed tools for multimedia content management with an emphasis on green screen photography and 360\({}^{\circ}\) video production, the design team is able to write narrative scenarios and produce interactive experiences for VR and AR environments.