By Anthony DeBarros

adebarros@gannett.com

In a first-of-its-kind explanatory journalism project, The Des Moines Register and Gannett Digital have partnered to tell the story of an Iowa farm family using emerging virtual reality technology and 360-degree video.

The experience — which launched today at DesMoinesRegister.com as part of the Register's Harvest of Change series about how sweeping demographic and economic changes in America are affecting Iowa farm families — takes viewers on a virtual tour of the Dammann family farm in southwest Iowa, to a central "shop" location that includes the original 1888 farmhouse and the nerve center of the family's corn, soybean and calving operation.

It's best viewed with an Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset that gives viewers what its manufacturer, Oculus VR of California, calls a sense of "presence." Facebook recently acquired Oculus for more than $2 billion in cash and stock, placing it at the head of the nascent VR industry.

In our project, viewers can take an immersive, self-guided tour of the farm, rendered in 3-D using the Unity video game engine. Along the way are a dozen 360-degree video segments in which the family and others in agriculture discuss their work and issues they face with technology, genetically modified crops, shifting culture and the future of farming in a time of rapid change.

Total Cinema 360, a New York City film company, shot the videos using cameras that record images and sound in all directions at once. When watched via the Oculus Rift, the video appears to surround the viewer. Turn your head (or move your mouse) in any direction to see what's happening around you.

So far, about 125,000 of the first two Oculus Rift development kits have been sold, according to a company spokesman. The early buyers are largely developers and hard-core game enthusiasts. If you own one, you can download our Oculus version of the VR farm experience. For everyone else, we've built two-dimensional versions. You can download applications for PC and Mac (requiring a speedy computer and graphics card), or you can watch a "light" version in a Web browser after downloading a Unity 3-D plug-in.

To build the experience itself, the Gannett Digital team started with photos and video taken at the Dammann farm by the Register. Then, we used the Unity game engine to render the farm's terrain, buildings and flora.

Aerial imagery was used to accurately place and size objects. Everything in the environment was built to scale, and several objects, such as buildings, incorporate actual textures from photographs. On a visit to the farm in July, the team and a two-man crew from Total Cinema 360 shot the video segments and recorded audio, including natural sound from the farm that's heard in the experience.

Anthony DeBarros is director of interactive applications for Gannett Digital

Watch a video introduction, experience the virtual reality technology and view the series at DesMoinesRegister.com/HarvestofChange. Talk about the project with #VirtualFarm on Twitter.