INTERACTIVE MOTION PLATFORMS AND VIRTUAL REALITY FOR VEHICLE SIMULATORS

Extended-Reality Technologies: An Overview of Emerging Applications in Medical Education and Clinical Care.

The Effects of Virtual Reality Application on Pain Intensity, Anxiety Level and Patient Satisfaction in Patients Who Undergo Bronchoscopy: A Randomized Controlled Trial

The rapid development of virtual and augmented reality technologies is currently taking place in almost all spheres of activity. Elements of virtual and augmented reality are used in such areas as education, medicine, transport, gaming, tourism and others. The active spread of these technologies causes the emergence of special competencies in the IT labor market and, as a result, the formation of new professions.Many Russian universities are training students in IT training areas. Specialization in the development of computer games and virtual reality applications has begun recently. The provision of practical classes is accompanied by specific tasks, which gives students the opportunity to improve the use of software and technical devices.The relevance of the research is determined by the current demand for the use of the latest technologies by IT developers in the field of creating computer games. Today, technologies that provide a player’s immersion in virtual reality are becoming more and more popular. One of these technologies is a suit with wearable sensors that track a person’s position in space in real time. However, there are quite a few real described projects in the literature and on the Internet. This study examines the process of developing a task for creating a game application using virtual reality technology: a suit with wearable sensors for teaching students.Materials and methods of research. Timely identification of the needs of the IT market in personnel training allows educational organizations to form new training programs of different levels of training. This approach makes it possible to target the educational and methodological materials being developed to use the latest achievements in the development of the field under study.Using a systematic approach, the study characterizes virtual reality suits and sensors for monitoring the position in the user’s space. Thus, the goal of the task was to ensure the immersiveness and convenience of interaction between the player and the game environment.Based on materials on software, position sensors in space, the approach of pedagogical design was applied and the procedure was formed for a practical task, reflecting the relevant competencies.Results. The study was conducted on the basis in the framework of laboratory and practical work of students, as well as at a real enterprise. Training in the new profile of the direction of training “Applied informatics” is fully equipped with all the latest technologies in this field. As a result of the work, the content of the practical task was developed.Real development of virtual and augmented reality applications is conducted jointly with students. Almost all projects used a suit with body sensors.Conclusion. Our study examines in detail the process of developing an application using a suit with wearable sensors for further training of students. Based on the results, work can be carried out on real projects for any field. Based on the research materials, it is planned to issue a textbook for students with the profile of developing computer games and virtual / augmented reality applications.

Background: Breast milk is the best food for newborns until the age of 2 years, but many breastfeeding mothers have difficulty breastfeeding and cause anxiety, stress, and depression. This condition causes the growth of the hormone oxytocin to be slow so that the milk production does not go smoothly. Objective: developing the application of virtual reality (VR) glasses as oxytocin relaxation therapy to increase breast milk production in postpartum mothers. Method: the method used was pre-experimental with a one-group pretest-posttest design approach. Results: This research involved respondents with the criteria; breastfeeding mothers with an age range of 20-35 years, the majority of whom have higher education, most of whom work. The results show that there is a difference in the average before and after treatment with VR glasses, namely the average before treatment was 57.11 with an SD of 13,546, the average after treatment was 73.55 with an SD of 9.921. Statistical test results obtained a p-value of 0.000 (p<) with a difference in the average value of 11.44. The conclusion is that postpartum mothers who are breastfeeding are comforted by the application of audio-visual, thereby stabilizing the increase in the hormone oxytocin which acts as an increase in breast milk production.

PurposeThis study explores tourists' virtual reality experiences during the transition to the Metaverse.Design/methodology/approachQualitative approach was employed to capture tourists' virtual reality experiences and knowledge of the Metaverse at two five-star hotels in Kusadasi (Republic of Turkey). The data were collected from Kusadasi using a purposive sampling technique. The research design focused on data collection with the structured interview technique. The interview form consisted of 7 questions in total, and a voice recorder was used to record the answers of the participants. After the first 4 questions were asked, the participants were presented a virtual reality experience with the virtual reality (VR) glasses. The interview was held face-to-face with thirty-five participants consisting of domestic and foreign tourists in two five-star hotels in the summer season of 2022. The collected data were analyzed with the content analysis technique and themes were created.FindingsThis study's findings enhance the conceptual capital in this emerging field and provide insights into many of the participants who have and have never experienced virtual reality applications and who are familiar and unfamiliar with the Metaverse as a concept.Research limitations/implicationsThis study generates empirical data that informs contemporary debates about virtual reality and the Metaverse.Practical implicationsThe findings show that most participants have never experienced a virtual reality application. Hotels and travel agencies should be aware of this new futuristic technology before the Metaverse transition. Metaverse is for generation Y and Z instead of Baby Boomers and generation X.Originality/valueThis study is unique in terms of depth and fills the gap as it provides useful insights regarding the evaluation of tourists' virtual reality experiences in the transition process to the Metaverse.

We examined the effects of using mobile devices with immersive virtual reality for a short period on the physiological parameters of both eyes. The average age of the 50 participants (23 men and 27 women) was 17.72 ± 1.48 years, and refractive error ranged from 0 D to − 5.00 D. All the participants wore + 3.00 D glasses and underwent a 5-min relaxation adjustment through the atomization method. The participants wore immersive virtual reality (VR) glasses to watch a movie on a roller coaster for 10 min. Their relevant physiological parameters of the eyes were measured both before and after using VR glasses. Compared with before VR use, no significant difference (P > 0.05) was observed in the near-horizontal vergence and refractive error but a significant difference (P < 0.05) was observed in the amplitude of accommodation, intraocular pressure, divergence/convergence, and stereopsis after VR use. The corneal elastic coefficient was > 0.2 MPa, and we used Friedenwald’s eye rigidity relationship to obtain the K value (0.065–0.09). Approximately 10% of the participants experienced cybersickness symptoms such as nausea and dizziness. The use of VR to watch three-dimensional movies reduced intraocular pressure, which may help prevent or treat glaucoma. Moreover, the binocular convergence was higher when viewing near-field objects in VR than in the real world. Therefore, individuals with convergence excess may experience symptoms. Binocular parallax is the most likely cause of cybersickness symptoms. Thus, mobile VR devices with higher quality and comfort are necessary.

Computational thinking (CT) skills are increasingly important in education to prepare students for the challenges of the digital age. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) have been introduced as immersive technologies that have the potential to enhance CT skills through more interactive learning experiences. However, there is still a gap in understanding the effectiveness of these technologies in supporting the development of CT, particularly in different levels of education and disciplines. Although several studies have highlighted the benefits of AR and VR in education, no systematic review integrates these findings to identify advantages, challenges, and opportunities for further implementation. Therefore, this study conducted a systematic review based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines by analyzing 25 empirical studies (AR=17, VR=8) obtained from the Scopus database (2008-2024). The analysis addresses four key research questions: (1) the current state of AR/VR in CT development, (2) their advantages, (3) implementation challenges, and (4) future research directions. The results show that AR is more widespread than VR at various levels of education, with dominance in higher education followed by secondary and primary schools. Computer science is the main field of application of AR and VR, while AR is also widely applied in mathematics to increase interest and problem-solving. A total of 11 studies reported significant impacts of these technologies on CT, with AR being superior in increasing student motivation and engagement, as well as aiding in problem-solving and debugging. In contrast, VR provides a more immersive learning experience by strengthening concept understanding, especially in programming and recursion. However, several obstacles in the application of AR and VR, such as hardware limitations, costs, and user skills, affect the effectiveness of these technologies in the learning environment. This study also identified potential future research, including the exploration of VR in primary and kindergarten education, the application of VR in non-computer science fields, and the efficient use of these technologies in supporting the CT process. This study provides more precise insights into the optimal ways of utilizing AR and VR in developing CT skills. It is a reference for educators, policymakers, and researchers in supporting CT learning.

Purpose Virtual reality (VR) can be used as an alternative mean for viewing collections at home when it is not possible to visit museums due to COVID-19. This study took the development process of VR at Taiwan's National Palace Museum (NPM) as a case to discuss the characteristics of VR developed there in different periods and how NPM transforms the contents of its collections into VR. Design/methodology/approach This study used a case study to analyze the development process of VR at NPM from 2014 to 2019 and summarized the characteristics of the development and application of VR. Findings The authors find that the history of VR application in NPM is a process from exploring the technology to gradually getting familiar with the potential of its application. Its development can be divided into the exploration and experiment stage from 2014 to 2015, the single collection interpretation stage in 2016 and the multipurpose application stage from 2017 to 2019. It is suggested that museums should adopt a long-term strategy to introduce VR, make plans carefully and pay attention to the limitations of VR application. Research limitations/implications The results of this study are suitable for art and history museums. Originality/value Many research studies on the application of VR in museums mostly focused on the benefits and technologies of adopting VR in museums as well as specific museum VR projects. There is still scant literature on the development process of museum VR from the perspective of museum organizations.

Virtual reality (VR) applications are used in many areas of academic and industrial research areas including engineering, bio-medical &amp; geo-sciences, among others. These applications generally focus on creating a VR environment to enhance user experience. One of the main challenges VR application developers face is to make objects within the environment move in a natural, realistic manner. Many commercial packages and programming libraries exist to help generate complex animations, including physics engines, game engines and modeling software such as Autodesk Maya. All of these tools are very useful, but have many disadvantages when applied to VR applications, as they were not designed for VR development. To address these issues, a VR application programming interface (API) was developed to help VR developers create and visualize natural, complex animations for VR-based systems utilizing OpenSceneGraph. This API, called the Animation Engine 2.0, was built in a manner animators and developers are already familiar with by integrating control points and keyframes for controlling animations. The system is time-based to scale to any size of VR system, which enabled the ability to support different time interpolations as well to incorporate acceleration into animations to create behavioral events such as a boing, bounce, or surge. In this paper, the Animation Engine API is presented along with its integration into a VR aircraft carrier application.

During the years common understanding of the possibilities and perspectives of Virtual Reality (VR) usage has been changed. It is thought that VR is mainly used in entertainment purposes, but it is being used already for many years in different industries, and now with easier access to the hardware it became a helpful and accessible tool that could be used and developed in any field of human activities. In manufacturing, immersive technologies are mainly used nowadays for the visualisation of processes and products combining those visuals into the factory Digital Twin (DT) which is possible to view from the inside look. This feature is already being used in several manufacturing simulation tools, which enable to view onto industrial line / robotic cells via Virtual Reality glasses. However, the potential of using simulations with VR in manufacturing is not fully uncovered. The main aim of this, industrial robotics targeted research is to enable besides simulation also universal control algorithms through Virtual Reality experience, produced by game engine Unity3D, which can be easily modified for a wide range of industrial equipment. The primary outcome of this work is the development of the synchro-nisation model of real and virtual industrial robots and experimental testing the developed model in Virtual Reality and shop floor labs

Objective.To create highly immersive experiences in virtual reality (VR) it is important to not only include the visual sense but also to involve multimodal sensory input. To achieve optimal results, the temporal and spatial synchronization of these multimodal inputs is critical. It is therefore necessary to find methods to objectively evaluate the synchronization of VR experiences with a continuous tracking of the user.Approach.In this study a passive touch experience was incorporated in a visual-tactile VR setup using VR glasses and tactile sensations in mid-air. Inconsistencies of multimodal perception were intentionally integrated into a discrimination task. The participants' electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded to obtain neural correlates of visual-tactile mismatch situations.Main results.The results showed significant differences in the event-related potentials (ERP) between match and mismatch situations. A biphasic ERP configuration consisting of a positivity at 120 ms and a later negativity at 370 ms was observed following a visual-tactile mismatch.Significance.This late negativity could be related to the N400 that is associated with semantic incongruency. These results provide a promising approach towards the objective evaluation of visual-tactile synchronization in virtual experiences.

Objective: The aim of this pilot study is to teach midwifery students fetal development with the Fetal Development Application created by virtual reality (VR) technology, an innovative application, and to acquire their reflections on their experiences. Methods: A descriptive qualitative research design was used. The VR application was created by visualizing the fetal development, umbilical cord and placenta localization week by week and transferring them to the virtual environment. Forty-two midwifery students who experienced the practice were included in the study. Students who had previously taken fetal development in the normal pregnancy course were shown the application with VR glasses in the laboratory environment. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews with a semi-structured interview form and a Presence Questionnaire developed by the researchers. They evaluated students’ perceptions of the practice’s strengths and weaknesses and whether the game would be useful as a learning too. Results: The thematic analysis resulted in the following components of the practice experience: interaction, motivation, knowledge, and realism. Students reported that it is effective for understanding fetal development and can be used in lessons. These results highlighted students’ acceptance of technology as a teaching and learning resource and showed potential for future developments. Conclusion: In line with these results, it was seen that the effect of the application was permanent. It has been seen that the VR method has a good practice effect in teaching fetal development and midwifery practice. More research is needed to assess whether students’ learning and retention of knowledge are improved using this new technology.

The majority of virtual reality (VR) applications rely on audiovisual stimuli and do not exploit the addition of other sensory cues that could increase the potential of VR. This systematic review surveys the existing literature on multisensory VR and the impact of haptic, olfactory, and taste cues over audiovisual VR. The goal is to identify the extent to which multisensory stimuli affect the VR experience, which stimuli are used in multisensory VR, the type of VR setups used, and the application fields covered. An analysis of the 105 studies that met the eligibility criteria revealed that 84.8 percent of the studies show a positive impact of multisensory VR experiences. Haptics is the most commonly used stimulus in multisensory VR systems (86.6 percent). Non-immersive and immersive VR setups are preferred over semi-immersive setups. Regarding the application fields, a considerable part was adopted by health professionals and science and engineering professionals. We further conclude that smell and taste are still underexplored, and they can bring significant value to VR applications. More research is recommended on how to synthesize and deliver these stimuli, which still require complex and costly apparatus be integrated into the VR experience in a controlled and straightforward manner.

In this project, an interactive guidance interface is built in the virtual environment presented by virtual reality (VR) glasses to explore whether this interface is helpful for positioning and prompting when viewing VR images. It is explored in the VR environment whether the usability of the interactive guidance interface and the actual guidance effect are in line with the expectations. The goal of the VR project developed in this paper is to provide elementary school students a direct and interesting experience of visiting the National University of Tainan. The target users of this project are elementary school students. The target users are able to use mobile devices. The produced VR has two characteristics: interaction and immersion.

We present a flexible system for high‐quality three‐dimensional reconstruction of dynamic real‐world objects based on a modular multi‐camera capture setup. The proposed algorithmic pipeline aims at the acquisition and digitization of natural and realistic representations of real people that can be easily integrated into augmented and virtual reality applications. In this context, we discuss the reduction of mesh complexity as one of the key challenges for visualizing reconstructed three‐dimensional content with augmented and virtual reality glasses and demonstrate different fields of application.