ChronoShore: Diegetic Exploration of Short- and Long-Term Environmental Time in a Virtual Coastal Ecosystem

We present an extended version of ChronoShore, an immersive virtual reality (VR) environment for interacting with environmental time at multiple temporal scales. The virtual environment is based on a multi-resolution reconstruction of a real segment of the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, generated from heterogeneous geospatial datasets including aerial point clouds, satellite-based elevation data, and global bathymetry. Unlike conventional timeline-based controls, ChronoShore enables users to explore and manipulate time through diegetic environmental cues, or zeitgebers, embedded directly in the virtual world. In addition to short-term time control via celestial bodies such as the sun and moon, the new version introduces long-term temporal interaction through vegetation, particularly trees, allowing users to traverse years or decades within the simulation. The environment features an enhanced weather model with realistic seasonal dynamics, including rain patterns and cloud morphologies that evolve over the course of the day in response to atmospheric conditions. ChronoShore serves as a research and application platform for studying time perception in VR, immersive storytelling of geological and environmental processes, and relaxation-oriented experiences. The platform is available to other researchers upon request.