Page 232 - Kaleidoscope Academic Conference Proceedings 2020

Session 6: Immersive technologies in farming

S6.1 Immersive technologies for development: An analysis of agriculture
Omowunmi Isafiade and Ofentse Mabiletsa, University of the Western Cape, South Africa

Agricultural development is key to any economic development. Immersive technology plays a
catalytic role and offers smart and sustainable choices to farmers who want to improve on
agricultural productivity, and to agricultural training institutes that seek to use modern technology
to advance pedagogy and reduce fatalities and operating costs in the learning space, among others.
Currently, there are limited descriptive literature reviews in the area of immersive technology in
agriculture, hereafter referred to as AVR-Agric. This paper presents a systematic literature review
(SLR), which offers a structured, methodical, and rigorous approach to the understanding of the
trend of research in AVR-Agric, and the least and most researched issues. This study explores and
examines the current trends in the immersive technology-based agriculture areas, and provides a
credible intellectual guide for future research direction. The SLR was limited to existing
applications and peer-reviewed conference and journal articles published from 2006 to 2020. The
results showed that virtual reality was implemented in 41% of the papers reviewed, augmented
reality was found in 53%, while only 6% considered mixed-reality applications. The study also
showed that developments that incorporate IoT, blockchain, and machine-learning technologies
are still at their stage of exploration and advancement.

S6.2 Immersive interactive technology: A case study of a wine farm
Ofentse Mabiletsa, Omowunmi Isafiade, Sarel J. Viljoen, Jason Farrell and Lwando Ngqwemla,
University of the Western Cape, South Africa

Immersive technologies have paved a unique way of performing agricultural activities as well as
learning and interacting with 3D content, among others. Moreover, the current situation from the
COVID-19 pandemic has further created the need to develop solutions that can help the agriculture
industry to stay relevant and ahead of potential post-COVID-19 challenges. This paper presents
an immersive virtual reality application using a wine farm as a case study. The developed farm
marketing application used participatory design and SCRUM methodology to showcase a wine
farm and the wine production process. The application provides a virtual walk-through of the
vineyards (lookout point), the lodge, the community garden, the conference facilities, as well as
the cellar in 3D 360-degree rendering. Current basic 360-degree exploration applications exist but
none have incorporated 3D 360-degree exploration as presented in the current research. The
immersive experience provides a more realistic experience and feel of what is available on the
farm. Results and feedback confirm that the farm marketing application shows promise in
promoting wine farm marketing and other farm offerings.

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