ATLANTA—The Weather Channel is now able to offer first-hand, virtual looks at what the weather in a city or town will be like with the new Virtual Views feature, an immersive technology offering hyper-realistic visualizations.
Based on The Weather Channel’s Immersive Mixed Reality (IMR) technology, Virtual Views transports the network’s on-camera meteorologists to cities to showcase the forecasted weather specific to that city before it happens. The technology debuted during an “AMHQ” segment, where meteorologist Stephanie Abrams previewed a rainy Miami that was forecasted for later that day.
Virtual Views is part of The Weather Channel’s IMR Weather Studio. Virtual Views combines HDR imagery, 3D LiDAR scanning and IMR to produce the virtualized scenes used during these segments. The Weather Channel can control the weather and visually display conditions using real-time data.
Weather Channel plans to integrate Virtual View IMR segments into its daily live programming and forecasts. It plans to feature landscapes/backdrops from around 50 U.S. cities.
