STROLL through the Sungei Buloh nature reserve and zoom in for a closer look at the flora and fauna.

Or, take a walk down Esplanade Bridge to see Singapore's icon, theMerlion - without stepping out of the house.

With the emergence of Virtual Reality (VR) technology, what was once used only to show properties online to potential buyers is now being used to display popular local watering holes and tourist attractions.

Mr Aram Pan has created Singapore's first VR website - www.singaporevr.com - that is dedicated to exploring quirky nooks and corners of the island.

He hopes that this "mini encyclopedia" will give tourists and Singaporeans alike "a holistic view of Singapore".

VR is a technology which allows users to interact with a computer-simulated environment.

"There's this biased view that VR can only be used for property and I want to help people take a fresh look at it," he said.

Calling it his kind of art, the 32-year-old has been dabbling in VR photography for a decade.

But it was only in the last four years that he took it seriously.

About three years ago, he bore the idea of featuring less trodden places like the Kranji War Memorial and the Courts of Hell at the Haw Par Villa theme park.

The start-up cost him about $20,000. Using his own money, he set up the website with the help of his two colleagues.

He revealed that themost taxing part of the hobby is the post-production work.

This includes stitching the photos together to create a cube or a sphere, and fine tuning it.

That takes at least an hour or two and the end-product is known as a VR Paranoma.

Although it sounds simple, the process invloves many difficulties, from taking the photographs before the subjects in the venue move, to perfecting the contrasts in lighting during post production.

Still, the VR afficionado finds it all worthwhile.

"VRs are immersive and have a much more powerful impact than the usual photos or videos because they capture the entire sphere and give people a sense of space and depth," he said.

He added that a video is "just a clip within a frame" and the audience cannot interact or have control of where they want to go in the clip.

Through word-of-mouth, his website has already garnered over 1,270 eyeballs since its launch seven weeks ago.

Describing his non-commercial website as "very new", Mr Pan, who also has his own health supplement company at the IMM Building in Jurong, hopes that by next month, the website will be fully functional.

"I am certainly hoping that the website can progress into an online magazine with a twist, but whatever the outcome, it's still what I love to do," he said.

The passion has, indeed, earned Mr Pan some praise.

Ms Francisco Perez who resides in Florida, in the United States left this comment on the website: "Awesome site. Keep it up and updated, please."