For years, animal-rights advocates trying to expose bad practices in the meat industry have surreptitiously shot grainy photographs and hand-held video. Now they have a more sophisticated weapon in their arsenal: the virtual-reality camera.

Animal Equality, an animal rights group with branches in eight countries, laat year became the first to use virtual-reality video technology to highlight the treatment of farm animals. That video has been viewed by more than 63 million people around the world, according to the group, and other animal advocacy groups are exploring the technology.

On Thursday, Animal Equality released its third iAnimal, as it calls its 3-D films, a virtual-reality tour of conditions in dairy farms in Mexico, Germany and Britain. The VR technology allows viewers to “stand” in a barn and look all around, not just at the spot an advocate wishes to highlight.