VR Technology

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.