Cycling the length of Britain, virtually

A digital games programmer from Angus is thought to be the first person to cycle from Land's End to John o'Groats in virtual reality (VR).

Aaron Puzey did it without leaving home. He used an exercise bike, publicly available images and a smartphone app he wrote himself.

He rode more than 900 miles, burning 50,000 calories in the process.

Now he's hoping his creation - called CycleVR - will become a commercial proposition.

Aaron pedalled the length of Britain without leaving his living room

For a dedicated cyclist, even January can offer some lovely days to go out for a spin but even more excuses to stay in.

Aaron Puzey has created the best of both worlds.

He knew riding his exercise bike was good for him but staring at the wall was boring.

So he set off to pedal from one end of Britain to the other in virtual reality.

Aaron works for a "digital toy workshop"

He left Land's End last Spring. Sort of.

By the time we met he had spent 85 hours in the saddle, spread over seven months.

He was virtually on the outskirts of John o'Groats.

Or should that be on the outskirts of John o'Groats, virtually?

Because in reality we were in the warmth of his living room in Monifieth.

On a TV monitor and in his 3D VR headset, images from Google Street View showed the famous signpost drawing closer.

By happy chance the Street View camera had captured a group of people standing at the finish line - a virtual welcoming committee.

Aaron whooped as bright yellow letters spelled out CYCLE COMPLETE!

The moment Aaron reached the end of the journey

"It feels fantastic," he says.

"It's such a good thing after six to seven months of cycling."

How did he do it? Physically, by pedalling. A lot.

Technologically, he did it by creating CycleVR as an app for his Android smartphone.

An inexpensive cadence meter attached to the exercise bike measures how fast he is pedalling.

That information helps create moving images from the Google Street View data.

These are sent to a VR headset, another component that didn't bust the budget.

The CycleVR app tied it all together.

Aaron programmed flying cubes to show him which way to go

"It was just a little mobile phone app that I wrote in my spare time," Aaron says.

"It probably took me three or four weeks.

"Just a little bit of research on how it works - and it came together really quickly."

That makes it sound easy, but then his day job is in Dundee's thriving digital games industry.

Denki Games describes itself as a digital toy workshop. It has contributed to titles like Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto.

Gary Penn, Denki's creative director, says he wasn't surprised when Aaron told him about his personal side project.

He says: "You thought, 'I'm surprised nobody's thought of that before'.

"Because it was a pretty obvious idea once he'd mentioned it.

"But no, not a surprise because he's always making things from things."

Aaron's favourite places on his digital journey include Bristol, the Lake District and Perthshire.

He took just three wrong turns along the way, overtook four horses and carts and witnessed two men having a punch-up.

Among the sights he saw along the way was this fight

Google stitches together its Street View panoramas from 2D digital pictures - so where does the 3D come from?

Aaron says enough information is already compressed into the Street View images.

CycleVR extracts the third dimension from information that might otherwise remain hidden.

Any problems? One common to many VR users: nausea.

Aaron found turning corners in VR made him feel sick.

The solution was to tweak the app so the moving images "strobed" round corners.

The visuals are a bit jumpier but there is a considerably reduced chance of reacquainting yourself with your lunch.

The next step will be to turn CycleVR into a commercial proposition.

Potential customers may be influenced by some more statistics.

The number of steep hills Aaron had to climb? Zero.

Headwinds faced? Zero.

Crashes, dog attacks, icy roads, rainstorms - in the VR world, not one of them either.

Plus, it's always daylight on Street View and you can get off the bike any time and go for a cuppa or nice lie down.

Aaron is now inviting suggestions for where in the world he should ride next. Without, of course, leaving Monifieth.

Street View certainly offers plenty of scope.

To me, Japan looks quite tempting. But only if someone creates an app that will do the pedalling as well.