Blind VR developer in demand
Somewhere out there is footage of a half-naked albino man running across a rooftop in central Auckland, while the house beneath him goes up in flames.
It was after this, the devastation of losing his home, that Simon Che de Boer swapped his drums for a computer and started exploring the world of virtual reality (VR).
He just wanted to ‘‘rebuild’’ his house, so that he and his daughter could ‘‘go home’’.
Four years later, the legallyblind man is now one of the most sought-after VR developers in the world.
Che de Boer’s VR journey started in 2014. At the time, music was his life. He was a drummer and singer in a band.
But the stress of losing his home, among other things, led him to VR.
‘‘I wanted to see if there was a way for us to recreate our place. I was suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder as a result of the experience, as anyone would,’’ he said.
‘‘So I thought, ‘How do I deal with all of this?’ So I got into VR.
‘‘I wanted to see if I could recreate our place, essentially for us to go home and regain something we lost.
‘‘So basically for two-anda-half years, I sat in my room just working on this stuff.’’
Along the way, he also developed other VR experiences, which he released online – and the calls started flooding in.
Che de Boer, who grew up in Levin, now spends his time flying around the world scanning sites of cultural significance that are at risk of degradation due to environmental factors, or war. The idea is to preserve what is left for future generations.
Although there were other developers doing the same work, none was as good as him, he said. ‘‘Not even close.’’
His point of difference was the realism he could capture.
‘‘You can go up to a painting and look at the blobs of oil coming off that painting. You can see every single brush stroke, and see how the light bounces off it.’’
Blindness was an advantage, not a barrier, because his attention to detail was greater than most people’s.
‘‘With the techniques I’m using, I’m going out and scanning these sites in the real world, not being able to actually appreciate their true beauty up until the point when I get into VR when I can actually get personal with it.’’
His latest project took him to Egypt to shoot locations in the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens, as well as Karnak.
During the next few months, he would visit Italy and Canada, and he has also been asked to scan caves and tunnels in Iraq.
And as for the virtual recreation of his home? Che de Boer said he should be able to complete it within the next few years, once technology caught up.
‘‘I wanted to see if I could recreate our place, essentially for us to go home and regain something we lost.’’
Simon Che de Boer