A Journey Back in Time: The Kowloon City VR Project

Kowloon City’s vibrant streets, lined with timeworn shops scented with dried seafood and aged tea, are woven into the heart of Hong Kong. As the Urban Renewal Authority plans to redevelop Nga Tsin Wai Road (衙前圍道), phasing out its beloved shops within the next decade, the Kowloon City VR Project, a Teaching and Learning Innovation Project (TLIP) funded by HKUST’s Center for Education Innovation (CEI) (2024–2025), emerges as a heartfelt effort to preserve these fading treasures.

Shops in Kowloon City. Credit by Birdy Chu, Lecturer, Division of Humanities, HKUST.

Using Virtual Reality (VR), this project immortalizes the cultural heritage of shops like Yuen Mao Hing Kee Tea Shop (源茂興記茶莊) and Kam Shing Dried Seafood Shop (金城海味). The team captured their essence through oral interviews, photogrammetry, and photography to create immersive 3D VR scenes. These digital recreations, paired with audio recordings, invite users to step into the warmth and nostalgia of these cherished spaces.

Applying photogrammetry techniques to Yuen Mao Hing Kee Tea Shop (源茂興記茶莊)

3D objects of the shop cat and dried fish fins at Kam Shing Dried Seafood Shop (金城海味)

Student-Created Tutorials: A Gift to Our Community

Beyond preservation, this project celebrates student ingenuity. The student assistants and team members of this project have produced seven tutorials from their journey.

These resources highlight their growing expertise in photogrammetry, audio processing, and VR development:

3D Asset Creation

1. Use Mobile App to Scan Physical Objects into 3D Assets (Link)
2. Photogrammetry with Kiri Pro – Convert Photos of Physical Object to 3D Model (Link)
3. Using Blender for Polishing 3D Models (Link)

Audio Processing

4. Make Your Audio Recordings Sound Cleaner: Reduce Background Noise Using Audacity (Link)
5. Transcribe Cantonese Speech to Text: With Code Samples and Automated Batch Processing Techniques (Link)

Virtual Environment Development

6. How to Create a Mirror Material in Unreal Engine 5 (Link)
7. How to Grab an Object and Move Around in Unreal Engine 5 (Link)

The Kowloon City VR Project is a love letter to Hong Kong, blending technology and heart to keep our heritage alive. We invite you to step into these virtual shops, explore the 3D models, and experience the stories they tell on our project page.

– By Digital Scholarship, Library

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