Welcome to the virtual Kalakala
This is a work in progress. It ain’t done yet.
Welcome to a virtual walk through of the historic Puget Sound ferry, the MV Kalakala.
The Kalakala served as a ferry on the waters of Puget Sound in the Seattle area from 1935 to 1967.
She had a very distinctive "streamlined" Art Deco styling that made her instantly recognizable.
Rising from the ashes like the proverbial Phoenix, the hull of the Kalakala was originally constructed for the Peralta in 1926,
which burned down to the water line in 1933.
The remains of that ship were then purchased and transported to Seattle, which the Kalakala was built upon.
After her retirement as a ferry in 1967, she was sold to a seafood processor and used to package seafood.
She was abandoned some time before 1984, when her rusting hulk was discovered in Alaska.
She was subsequently towed back to the Puget Sound area with the desire to restore her to her former glory.
Unfortunately, that never happened, and she was scrapped in early 2015.
Aside from her pleasing aesthetics, the Kalakala has the distinction of having the first commercially available navigation radar.
The FCC issued license #001 for that radar in 1946.
This project is a joint effort between Steve Rosenow and Dan McCabe. Steve created this amazingly detailed model,
and Dan created the interactive visualization and navigation of that model in a browser using WebGL technology.
Feel free to explore the Kalakala's two main decks, as well as the car deck and the bridge.
Navigation
- the model and its interior can be explored using a keyboard, a mouse,
or a gamepad. If you have a
virtual reality head set such as the Oculus Rift, you can use it to view
your surroundings as well. However, if you want to view with your Rift,
you will need to use either the Firefox Nightly build or the Chromium WebVR build.
For more information, go to MozVR.com.
Move
forward
press ▲
or the W key
Move
backward
press
▼ or the S key
Turn right
press ▶ or
the D key
Turn left
press ◀ or
the A key
Mouse:
Move
forward
press the
mouse button and drag the mouse up
Move
backward
press
the mouse button and drag the mouse down
Turn right
press
the mouse button and drag the mouse to the right
Turn left
press the
mouse button and drag the mouse to the left
Gamepad:
Move
forward
push the
left joystick away from you
Move
backward
pull
the left joystick toward you
Turn right
push
the left joystick to the right
Turn left
push the
left joystick to the left
Important - to activate the gamepad, first press any of the four
buttons on the right side of the gamepad!