How Advanced Tech and AI Are Unlocking an Unseen Underwater World

Off the rugged coastline of Hvammstangi, the cold waters of northern Iceland harbor a hidden world few humans ever get to truly see. While seals have long fascinated onlookers from afar, watching them from the shore barely scratches the surface of their lives. A pioneering 3D virtual reality project at the Icelandic Seal Museum (Selasetur Íslands) is now transporting audiences directly into the seal’s aquatic sanctuary, offering a captivating window into their underwater universe.

Supported by a grant from SSNV and created in collaboration with Örvar Birkir Eiríksson of the Icelandic Seal Museum, the project was designed to build a mesmerizing, fully immersive experience—one that opens up this hidden world to everyone, including visitors unable to navigate rugged coastal trails.

Capturing an Intimate World

To bring viewers face-to-face with these marine mammals, the team spent days conducting careful field operations around shoreline havens like Illugastaðir. Avoiding noisy aerial drones, cinematographer Árni Rúnar Hrólfsson braved the icy waters in a wetsuit, while technical specialist Ísak Atli Finnbogason piloted a CHASING M2 underwater ROV submarine tethered by a 50-meter cable. Fitted with dual Insta360 cameras in custom waterproof housings, the sub glided through the waves while telephoto lenses on land documented coastal behavior from a distance.

The resulting footage captured extraordinary closeness. Inquisitive young seal pups swam up within inches of the lenses, yielding rare glimpses of natural marine life—including a mother quietly nursing her cub on a secluded islet.

Building the Digital Portal

Translating these wild encounters into a smooth VR journey required heavy technical problem-solving. Underwater lens distortion initially left key sections of the 360-degree footage out of focus. To salvage the shots, the team split the video into four quadrants and utilized high-performance GPU hardware to run specialized AI models (Topaz Video AI / Starlight), successfully restoring razor-sharp detail.

Because natural seal passes often lasted only a few fleeting seconds, AI frame interpolation was deployed to generate missing frames, expanding brief underwater glimpses into smooth slow-motion sequences. Finally, 3D depth mapping transformed the footage into a stereoscopic experience, giving viewers a true sense of depth and physical presence beneath the surface.

Step Into the Depths

The final custom VR application now anchors a permanent exhibition at the Icelandic Seal Museum in Hvammstangi. Featuring over 15 minutes of interactive content—comprising three 3D 360-degree underwater journeys alongside an animated educational film by design studio Gagarin—the experience invites visitors to step inside a world usually hidden beneath the waves.