WISHING
TO MAKE SOCIAL LIFE MORE REALISTIC BY BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN THE REAL WORLD
AND THE VIRTUAL WORLD BY USING VR TECHNOLOGY
-Blog By Saurabh Tumane (Final Year Student, Dept. of ETC, ACET, Nagpur)
Virtual reality is an artificial
environment created with computer hardware and software and presented to the
user in such a way that it appears and feels like a real environment. This
technology has been applied in all walks of life especially in education where
it is used to simulate learning environments. So many universities and military
establishments had adopted this technology and this had improved the learning
capability of users. This paper presented lack of laboratory experience as the major
problem and the way to overcome the problem through the use of virtual reality
technology to simulate virtual reality laboratories.
OUTLINE: Imagine you are inside a car driving
without actually being inside that car; you as a pilot is undergoing training,
flying, landing and crashing a plane without actually being inside that plane;
you as a computer engineer, diagnoses faults and assembles computer systems
without actually working with the real physical components. Imagine yourself as
a surgeon, walks into an operating theatre, cut open the heart of a patient to
change a defective valve. The scenarios described have been made possible
through a technology known as virtual reality (VR).
Virtual Reality Laboratories:
In
recent times, VR technology has been hyped. It is steadily finding its way in
all areas of human endeavours most especially in education.
1. One application and use of VR in
education is in the development of Second Life. Second Life is a Web-based
multi-user 3D virtual world developed by Linden Lab, a San Francisco-based
company. Second Life is one of the most popular virtual reality tools,
attracting educators from all over the world by offering a variety of
opportunities for interaction, sense of community, and users’ self-building
capabilities.
Recent statistics showed that there are over
100 educational institutes (Harvard University taking the lead) that had
established their virtual campus in Second Life and are actively working in the
virtual world. There are a lot of
success stories as regards the application and use of simulated environment
using VR technology. VR has extremely wide applications across a whole range of
disciplines.
2. Vicher (Virtual Chemical Reactors) was
developed at the University of Michigan in the department of Chemical Engineering
to teach students catalyst decay, non-isothermal effects in kinetics, reactor
design and chemical plant safety.
3. At the Kongju National University in
Korea, a computer-based virtual reality simulation that helps students to learn
physics concepts was developed. This virtual laboratory has helped students
gain laboratory experience and thus improved their performance. In training and simulation, battlefield simulations
have been developed using real data from Desert Storm. The US Navy uses flight
simulators to help train pilots for general navigation as well as special
assignments.
I.On-Line Interactive Virtual Environment
(OLIVE) This is a product
of Forterra Systems Inc. Forterra Systems Inc. builds distributed virtual world
technology and turnkey applications for defense, homeland security, medical,
corporate training, and entertainment industries. Using the On-Line Interactive
Virtual Environment (OLIVE) technology platform, Forterra’s technology
and services enable organizations to train, plan, rehearse, and collaborate in
ways previously considered impossible or impractical.
II.Open Simulator (OpenSim) Open Simulator
is a 3D application server. Open Simulator allows you to develop your environment
using technologies you feel work best. Open Simulator has numerous advantages
which among other things are
1. It
has many tools for developers to build various applications (chat application,
buildings, and avatars among others
2. It is a world building tools for creating
content real time in the environment.
Ogoglio is very different from the other
virtual reality world development platforms because it uses Windows, Linux,
Solaris operating system platforms and runs on web browsers such as Internet
Explorer, Firefox, and Safari
THE
NEED FOR THE DEVELOPMENT AND USE OF VIRTUAL REALITY LABORATORY:
The development and use of VR
laboratories will increase student engagement, add realism to instructions.
Thus, VR offers to bring exciting possibilities, which were once considered
science fiction.it has shown that we only remember 10% of what we read, and 20%
of what we hear, but that we retain up to 90% of what we learn through active
participation.
At NASA Johnson Space Center in Texas a
virtual physics laboratory was developed which enables students to explore such
concepts as gravity, friction, and drag in an interactive, virtual environment.
Students have several balls and a pendulum with which to work. Since, one of
the major restrictions for learning in science and engineering education is the
absence of equipped laboratories, VR laboratories will overcome this problem
and other problems associated with laboratory management most especially in
developing countries.
