TripVR

Inspiration

We wanted to build a cool program using virtual reality that would be useful for people planning to travel.

What it does

Our program uses the Google Places API to get search results and then displays markers on a virtual reality 3D map using A-Frame.

How we built it

We used python's requests and json libraries to interact with the Google Places API and store the results in a JSON file. Then we use a local Flask server to read the JSONs and run A-Frame. The Flask server then passes the results to A-Frame to display the results.

Challenges we ran into

• We had a hard time finding a free API to use to get map results in python.
• We had to learn how to set up and use the Google Places API.
• We had a VERY hard time getting a 3D map of the world, so we decided to only create a 3D map of New York City due to lack of time and hard drive space.
• We had to figure out how to mathematically determine the longitude and latitude of each point on the 3D map.
• We had to figure out how to set up VR events using A-Frame and javascript ## Accomplishments that we're proud of
• We can get any search results that can be found using Google Maps
• We got a nice-looking 3D map and got it to work with A-Frame
• We figured out how to mark every location on the 3D map using latitude and longitude. ## What we learned
• How to make requests using REST APIs
• How to create a 3D map from a 2D map
• How to parse JSON data using Python
• Javascript
• A-Frame
• How to use Google's APIs

What's next for TripVR

We want to expand it to be able to view any location on Earth.

Built With

• a-frame
• css
• google-places
• html
• javascript
• python