ABSTRACT
The Port Royal Project resulted from the collaboration of the UCLA Cultural Virtual Reality Laboratory and the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, California. Port Royal was the principal English colony in Jamaica in the seventeenth century. The port served the interior plantations by exporting their rum and sugar while importing nearly everything else including silver, pewter, luxury clothing from Europe and timber from North America, and even silk and ceramics from faraway China. As project sponsor and manager Charlie Steinmetz notes, there has been much discussion about using VR in museums but very few concrete projects involving true VR. The non-profit Ocean Institute is located in Dana Point, California, USA at the base of the Dana Point Headlands and the entrance to the Dana Point Marine Life Refuge. The UCLA CVRLab model made a strong and successful contribution to both the weekend public and middle-school overnight programs.
