osgOcean was developed as part of an EU funded research initiative called the VENUS project. The VENUS project aims at providing scientific methodologies and technological tools for the virtual exploration of deep underwater archaeology sites.

During the duration of this project digital replicas of three sites were created using a combination of acoustic and photogrammetric data. In order to engage the general public in research outputs a submarine simulator was developed that allows users to explore these archaeological sites in a realistic virtual environment.

osgOcean is an open source release of the rendering code that was used to generate the above and below water effects.