Apple Vision Pro can now take you inside the Tennessee Aquarium.

A short trip to Chattanooga

Apple Immersive Video combines 180-degree 3D footage recorded in 8K with Spatial Audio. The wide view, depth, and sound let you look around the aquarium instead of watching it through a flat frame. The scenes move quickly, so the film feels more like a short introduction than a full tour.

You spend time with ring-tailed lemurs and radiated tortoises in Tropical Cove. You also watch keepers feed alligators. That scene felt especially personal, as I got to feed alligators when I was there.

The film also brings you close to an owl and underwater life, takes you around Chattanooga and the conservatory, and introduces some of the people behind the aquarium. One of the coolest parts is how it blends 3D models into the scenes. A 3D alligator appears during the alligator feeding scene. Later, 3D fish swim around the person being interviewed at the conservatory. There is even more packed into its four minutes.

I saw part of the filming

Watching the finished film brought me back to Chattanooga. During a visit with SpatialGen, I got to watch part of the shoot and see the Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive camera up close.

It gave me a closer look at how much work sits behind a few minutes of immersive video. The camera records a wide view in 3D, so the crew has to plan for the whole space around it. They have fewer places to hide lights, gear, and crew.

More places to find immersive video

The River You See is playing in Theater (opens in a new tab), one of the best third-party media apps on Vision Pro. It brings Apple Immersive Video, 3D movies, fulldome films, YouTube, and personal Plex libraries into spaces built for each format.

Apple TV remains the main showcase for Apple’s own immersive films. Theater joins other third-party apps bringing immersive video to Vision Pro, while giving independent filmmakers and studios another way to reach viewers.

How it reaches Vision Pro

Filming is only part of the job. Apple Immersive Video can create several terabytes of data, and those huge files still need to become something a viewer can stream.

The short film is also a good example of what independent teams can now bring to Vision Pro. Sandwich Vision built Theater and produced the film with SpatialGen. SpatialGen provides the delivery tools that move this high-resolution video to Vision Pro.

In my interview with SpatialGen cofounders Zachary Handshoe (opens in a new tab) and Michael Butterfield (opens in a new tab), we talk about this aquarium shoot, why the files are so large, and the technology used to stream them. We also look at how the same work could make live immersive sports and concerts possible.

How to watch

First, download Theater from the App Store (opens in a new tab) on Apple Vision Pro. The app is free to download and requires visionOS 2.0 or later.

If you have a Vision Pro, open The River You See in Theater and take a four-minute trip through the Tennessee Aquarium. It is a fun look at what independent teams are now bringing to Apple Immersive Video.