While it's great to be able to virtually ride some of the world's best cycling routes on rainy or snowy days, sometimes you just wanna ride VR versions of your own favorite local roads. Rouvy's Route Creator lets you do exactly that, utilizing ride footage that you shoot yourself.
The base version of Rouvy is similar to other laptop/tablet-based interactive cycling platforms such as Zwift, in that it gives indoor cyclists a first-person-view of a virtual road as they pedal on a stationary bike or trainer.
The user's real-life cadence determines how fast their onscreen avatar travels along the road, plus they can ride with (or race against) the avatars of other users from around the world. Additionally, if the user is on a "smart" bike or trainer, their real-life pedaling resistance will increase or decrease as they climb or descend hills in the virtual world.
One thing that makes Rouvy special is the fact that instead of being completely computer-generated, many of its routes are created from actual professionally-shot video of real rides on some of the planet's most picturesque cycling circuits. The new Rouvy Route Creator function lets ordinary users do that themselves, with their own local rides.
Hardware-wise, all that's required is a forward-facing GPS-equipped video camera such as a newer GoPro Hero. After shooting one of their rides, the user uploads the footage to the online Route Creator tool. Its AI algorithms proceed to convert the 2D video into an interactive 3D environment.
The user can then tweak the appearance of that environment (shading, lighting, etc), plus they can overlay 3D elements such as starting/finishing gates or cheering fans. They can also add virtual gradients to the hills, which will trigger changes in real-world pedaling resistance accordingly. We're told that flow-impeding distractions such as camera-shakes or stops at traffic lights won't show up in the finished product.
Importantly, it's possible to share your routes with other online users, or to ride routes that they've created. So if you want to let someone in Zimbabwe know what the riding is like around Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, here's your chance.
Following a soft launch to a select group of test users late last year, Route Creator is now available to all Rouvy members. Subscriptions start at US$14.99 per month.
Source: Rouvy
