Introduction
Have you ever wanted to visit the Pyramids in their time of splendour? Show your students how magnetic fields form around an electromagnet? Discover a new machine or a new object before it is available? If the answer is yes, the Vizvoda project (Visit, Zen, Voyage, Discovery and Adventure) is what you’re looking for.
Basic principles
Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality allows you to experience existing, ancient, or even non-existent environments.
It makes it possible to show things that are invisible in the real world, such as magnetic fields or sound, or to let you visit an area too dangerous to visit in real life, completely safe manner.
It makes it possible to visualise existing or barely designed objects or machines (the “Digital Twin” principle), allowing the user to evaluate them or to train people to use them without the object or machine itself being present.
Immersion
The Vizvoda project is designed to maximize the immersion of the participants using some simple principles and specific technologies.
A Minimum of Worn Equipment
The headset, nothing but the headset. The headset is not connected to the server with cables, but through WiFi.
By keeping the worn equipment to a minimum, the participant can move around freely and no feeling of weight or resistance gets in the way of his experience.
Large Spaces
The Vizvoda project is designed to be used in large space sin which the participant can move normally (no teleportation). In this way the discrepancy between the movements he perceives in the Virtual Reality and his kinesthesia (his own sense of movement) is kept to a minimum greatly reducing the risk of nausea that some people experience in Virtual Reality.
State-of-The-Art Body Tracking Technology
The Vizvoda project uses a unique body tracking technology, called STR4P, developed by N-Gone.
It allows you to see the position of your own body (including limbs and torso) and that of other participants within the Virtual Reality.
This technology has two major advantages:
- By seeing his limbs in the correct place in the simulation, the participant experiences less discrepancy between his proprioception (the innate awareness of the position of his limbs) and what he sees. This discrepancy is a well-known problem in the world of Virtual Reality because the nervous system transmits that what it sees is not real and this reduces immersion.
- It allows the participant to see the other participants’ entire body, which increases safety and possible cooperation in the simulation.
Hyper-VR Elements
The Hyper-VR increases immersion even further by involving the passenger’s other senses. Fans can mimic the wind; scent diffusers activate the sense of smell…
Collaboration
For education and training purposes, the ability to work with another person, whether it is another student or a teacher, is an important element.
The Vizvoda project offers three types of cooperation:
Intra-Simulation
In this collaboration, two (or more) travellers can work together within the virtual reality.
An instructor could guide a student in his or her learning process, or two visitors can work together to solve a puzzle, for example.
Extra-Simulation
A person outside of the Virtual Reality environment can communicate with the traveller within virtual reality.
For example: The traveller outside of the Virtual Reality environment can serve as a guide, accompanying the Virtual Reality traveller visiting an unfamiliar world, assisting him in his mission in various ways.
Inter-Simulation
Inter-simulation allows two travellers to work together in two different simulations (or two parts of the same, disconnected simulation).
For example: one traveller can steer a ship and work together with another who is in the engine room of the ship.
Scripting
Vizvoda simulations can be scripted.
For example: travellers in a simulated visit can be left to their own devices while enjoying the world that has been made available to them. A Virtual Reality environment can be used for risk management training to simulate various realistic scenarios.