Systems and methods are disclosed for generating a virtual reality environment from an electronic document by mapping image and text content extracted from the electronic document to a virtual reality module. A computing system performs a process to analyze an electronic document to identify the document elements that occur within the electronic document. The document elements are parsed to identify candidate images that have minimum image characteristics suitable for virtual reality. One or more of the candidate images are inserted into the virtual reality module. Text elements related to the candidate images are also inserted into the virtual reality module. Upon execution of the virtual reality module by a virtual reality viewing device, the text and image elements from the electronic document are presented in a virtual reality environment to the viewer for non-linear exploration and reading.