The document discusses virtual reality (VR) technologies and their potential uses for training, learning, collaboration, and visualization. It provides a brief history of VR and describes Daden, a company that specializes in immersive 3D learning and visualization using VR. Examples are given of VR projects created by Daden for education and other sectors. Challenges of VR such as motion sickness, latency, and 2D interfaces are also outlined.

1. Virtual Reality for Training,
Learning, Collaboration and
Visualisation
A White Paper
© 2013 www .daden.co.uk

2. Who are Daden?
 Immersive 3D learning and visualisation specialists
 Founded 2004, but experience since late 1990s
 Times Higher Education Winning Projects 2009/14
 US Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge winner 2010
 Nearly 50 projects in immersive environments

3. History
 The early work on virtual reality in the military
and aviation fields
 Early thoughts and works by computer pioneers
such as Doug Engelbert (inventor of the mouse)
back in the late 50s/early 60s.
 1990s saw rise in public awareness, e.g through
Virtuality's VR entertainment VR pods
 During 2000s reverted to defence and aviation
and related area (eg medicine, design)
 The Oculus Rift kickstarter in 2012 brought it
back into mainstream awareness, and made it
more generally affordable

4. VR Centenary Square
● 3D model of Centenary Square
Birmingham, developed on
Unity3D, experienced in
Oculus Rift
● Fly over and around the new
Library of Birmingham (LoB)
● Sense of unease and danger
when navigating through dim
and narrow spaces around the
LoB building site
● Contrasts with the more
common, and vertigo inducing,
“superman” experience of
flying around the 3D space.

5. Current Hardware
 Whilst Oculus Rift has the
mind-share there are many
more VR Head Mounted
Displays (HMDs) around –
although like the Oculus
none of them are yet
available as consumer
items.
 Two main types:
 Purpose built/integrated
units (such as the Oculus
Rift),
 So-called mobile HMDs
which use conventional
smart phone in a special
head mounted holder.

6. VR Library of Birmingham
● We know that the Library staff and the
general public got a huge benefit from the
“2D” Virtual Library of Birmingham model –
but imagine what more the VR experience
would have given them.
● Architects, builders and commissioners
should also take the opportunity to create
the full multi-user social model of a building
rather than simply bolt a VR headset onto a
3D architecture, CAD or BIM tool.
● A virtual model of the new Library of
Birmingham developed by Daden for
Birmingham City Council in 2011 in
Second Life
●
● Some Second Life browsers offer
Oculus Rift support enabling an
“immersion squared” experience
●
● The VR experience of new building 3D
models is likely to become de rigur.

7. Immersive Environments
 Virtual Reality experiences are really just a special case of
immersive environments.
 By experiencing the environment through the 3D headset they
definitely heighten the sense of immersion - “immersion squared”
– but fundamentally it is still all about that subjective experience of
a 3D space.
 If users can only look at a 3D environment and choose from a
menu it's not going to be very immersive. If they can wander
through that environment, have a sense of purpose (and possibly
urgency), do things AND make mistakes then we are on our way
to creating an immersive environment.
 A truly immersive experience should also include virtual people –
bot non-player characters and other users
 VR is the same “sort” of experience as a conventional immersive
environment, but can have a different qualitative feel due to the
nature of the headset interface.

8. VR Benefits
 Since VR is just a type of immersive environment then it follows
that the benefits of VR will broadly follow those of immersive
environments – although in many cases the advantage may be
even more perceptible – that “immersion squared” again.

9. VR Skiddaw
● With the Rift the experience is “even
more so”. Ambient sound recordings so
having both the immersive visuals and
the audio gives us almost “immersion
cubed”.
● Running in multi-user mode you also get
a more realistic spatial sense of where
your colleagues were – particularly with
the ability of just being able to turn your
head to see where they are. Flying in VR
gives you a real “crow's-eye-view” of the
landscape.
● The piece-de-resistance of the VR
experience is picking up a rock to
examine it more closely. The rock just
hangs there in space, boulder sized, in
front of you, and you can peer around,
under and over it. And we've lost count of
the number of people who have then
tried to reach out and touch it!
● Developed for the Open University
● Lets students go on a virtual field trip,
roaming over 100 sq km of the English
Lake District,
● Examine detailed models of rock
outcrops, and pick up specific rocks
scanned at an even higher level of
detail at particular sites of interest

10. VR – What's Added?
 Natural 3D: Since VR is using two (offset) screens/viewpoints the
eye is seeing depth in an almost natural way – but this soon
becomes second nature
 Forced First-Person: This makes the experience far more
subjective – things come at you, not the avatar – but may affect
identification with your “avatar”.
 Lack of Distraction: With a VR headset on there is no distraction,
no breaking the flow – all you see is the virtual space.
 Isolation: You feel as though it's just you and the virtual world, and
the things in it... - and it's harder to ask for help!
 Removal of Safety: A net result of all this is that much of the
safety net of using a conventional immersive environment gets
removed – no help, no reassurance, which can step the whole
experience up into a higher gear.

11. VR Datascape
● We've actually been initially
underwhelmed by the Oculus experience
of data for two reasons:
● With data you often want to see a lot
of it, and having to do continual head
movements to look around soon
becomes tiring, and disorientating.
The “flat” immersive 3D experience
is actually better at taking the whole
of the data-scape in.
● Datascape is a visual analytics tool,
not purely a data visualisation tool –
so you need to be able to use the UI
to change and interrogate the
visualisation. But VR systems don't
like 2D UIs, so we'd have a major
rebuild task to make the UI usable
with the Rift – and at current text
resolutions this may not even be
practical.
● DARPA, the US defence research
agency, is using the Oculus Rift to look at
cyberdata as part of its $million Plan X
● At Daden we've been using the Oculus to
look at cyberdata with our Datascape
application for at least a year, and at
almost no cost!

12. To VR or not VR?
 VR will NOT always enhance the 2D experience, and just the
practicalities of buying many VR sets and trying to co-ordinate a
class of VR users means that we are a very long way from VR
being the default for immersive experiences.
 VR should still be approached on a case-by-case basis, using
conventional immersion when that works/is practical, and VR
when it's clearly adding something to the experience, and is
affordable and manageable.
 However if you develop an immersive environment/experience in a
generic way, rather than as a VR showcase, then it is actually
relatively easy to deploy it either to a 2D monitor, mouse and
keyboard set up, or to a VR headset.
 That same experience can also be delivered to web users, tablet
users (iPad or Android), and even the users of larger smart-
phones. If you work in true 3D, with flexible tools, then the
immersive environment can be delivered in a wide variety of ways.

13. User Modes
Two “modes” of using a VR headset are emerging, and whilst one of
them minimises the control problem (at the expense of some
immersion), neither solve it.
 Sit down: The user wears the VR headset whilst sat
down. Their head movements control the direction of look,
and a keyboard/mouse/joystick/game controller controls
the direction of their movement. Keeps controllers in front
of the user and also gets around the problem of tying
yourself in knots - but not as immersive.
 Stand up: The user stands up wearing the VR headset,
and uses a controller to move themselves forward or back,
but only in the direction they are looking. This feels far
more immersive, but soon results cable getting caught or
all the actions being carried out facing into the rest of the
room. 360 degree treadmills can take the experience even
further.

14. VR Controllers
 Pointing and control devices: Even in VR you need to activate
things and pass basic control instructions.
 Game Controller: The simplest solution but remember even though
you are holding the controller you can't see it!
 Wand: A Playstation/Wii style wand controller can also work, and if we
can give it a presence within the VR scene then all the better.
 Gesture controllers:
 Kinect: But depends on you facing a camera you cant see
 Leap Motion: Leap Motion converts the space in front of your monitor
into a gesture zone – but again needs you to face front – unless you
stick it on the Oculus headset...
 MYO: A cuff that you wear around the upper arm, and detects arm
and hand movement independent of where you are facing.
 Movement controllers:
 Apart from using mice and joysticks researcher are also looking at
ways in which we can take real leg movement to control walking

15. VR Apollo
● In the simulation we've tried to get close
to the “bunny hop” of a low gravity
walk.By looking at the equipment and
clicking the controller button you can
bring up information about each item.
● One feature that worked less well in VR
was the use of the original photos
triggered at the spots they were taken –
again the challenge of 2D material/UI in
a pure 3D VR world.
● Originally created our Tranquility Base
simulation in Second Life, for the 40th
anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing in
2009, then ported to Unity
● Experience is “immersion cubed” - not
only an audio element (the pings of the
comms system, but also the isolation
and the “helmet on” experience of a
restricted field of view and over done
head movement.

16. Key Sectors
 Main sectors likely to benefit from VR headsets follow those for
immersive environments in general:
 Education
 Heritage and Virtual Tourism
 Training
 Medical and Care
 Built Environment
 Engineering

17. Collaboration
 Always been a lot of talk (and some practice) of using immersive
environments for virtual collaboration
 A lot of companies have based their business model around this
(e.g. QWAQ) but have fallen by the wayside – the value add over
Skype/GotoMeeting doesn't balance the extra hassles except for
those already deeply involved with virtual worlds.
 VR might be enough to shift that balance, although a collaboration
session may well have a longer duration than a training session,
and breaks may be less natural – and people's willingness or
ability to wear a VR headset for a long time is yet to be tested in
the public at large.
 However for short durations the VR space can provide a
fascinating environment in which to facilitate collaboration,
particularly if it includes collaboration and creative thinking tools
optimised for VR use.

18. VR Campus
● With the Rift the fact that you aren't
being thrown around, and that you are
focussing on the task NOT the
environment we found actually
increased the immersion and decreased
the sense of motion-sickness. You were
right “in the flow”.
● Another interesting aspect is that since
our standard interaction model with the
Rift has become “look and click” the
whole experience is akin to suddenly
being given telekinetic powers – its
almost as though you just look at
something and it moves to where you
want it to go. Who would want to go
back to the physical world......
● Inside the Daden Campus the VR focus
is on task not “experience” - which can
lessen the motion sickness problem
● Daden Campus shows how immersive
3D environments can be used outside
of a task specific training simulation to
support collaborative learning,
education and working.

19. Design Challenges
 2D User Interface: Doesn't work well in 3D VR – there is no 2D
application surroudn to anchor it to
 2D Assets: Reading text and looking at images close-upalso
doesn't work well for similar reasons
 Text Input: It's hard to use a keyboard when you can't even see
where it is!
 Motion Sickness: A common curse of VR systems
 Latency: The delay between your body making a head movement
and the VR headset showing you the updated view – gradually
being solved by the VR system makers
 Audio: Often the poor relation but having good ambient audio can
significantly improve the sense of immersion in “ordinary” 3D, and
in VR it is again a sense of immersion squared (or even cubed in
this instance).

20. Do It Now!
Even though there is no commercial
“consumer” VR headset in mass production
yet there are still plenty of ways that
organisations can take advantage of VR
right now. For instance we can:
● Run VR experiences and impact sessions
at corporate study days to help you better
understand what potential this technology
has for your organisation and your
industry
● Create VR experiences for use at trade
shows and in public spaces
● Create prototype VR applications for use
in R&D projects to help inform future
decisions
● Create VR applications that you can make
available to the growing community of
developers with VR headsets to help
position your brand
● If your project is developed in full 3D then
it can be converted at a later date to work
with the Oculus Rift and other headsets
● A lot of the benefits of immersive 3D are
delivered just through ordinary computers
and mobile tablets and don't need a VR
headset.
● So there's nothing to stop you delivering
an immersive 3D training, education,
collaboration or built-environment project
now, and then growing into the use of
Vrwhere it adds value and as it becomes
more available.

21. VR Futures

22. VR Futures - Caprica
If you want to get a sense of where VR could be heading check out the holobands
and “V-worlds” of Caprica – the mini-series prequel of Battlestar Galactica

23. White Paper
The full white-paper is
available for download:
http://www.daden.co.uk/conc/resources/whitepapers/
whitepapers_download

24. Web: www.daden.co.uk
Email: info@daden.co.uk
Video: www.daden.co.uk/vimeo
Twitter: @dadenlimited