Virtual Explorer: Interactive Virtual Environment for Education

The Virtual Explorer project of the Senses Bureau at the University of California, San Diego, focuses on creating immersive, highly interactive environments for education and scientiŽc visualization which are designed to be educational—and exciting, playful, and enjoyable, as well. We have created an integrated model system on human immunology to demonstrate the application of virtual reality to education, and we’ve also developed a modular software framework to facilitate the further extension of the Virtual Explorer model to other Želds. The system has been installed internationally in numerous science museums, and more than 7,000 individuals have participated in demonstrations. The complete source code—which runs on a variety of Silicon Graphics computers—is available on CD-ROM from the authors. 1 Overview and Purpose The Senses Bureau is an undergraduate research group with a thirty-year history of innovation in computer graphics and multimedia technology for education and scientiŽc visualization. We at the Bureau believe that virtual reality (VR) has excellent potential as an educational medium to supplement conventional techniques because it provides both greater interactivity as well as the ability to create a convincing sense of immersion in the computer-generated environment that is beyond what is possible with conventional textbookand blackboard-based educational approaches. Many topics in science education involve processes that occur simultaneously on multiple time and length scales that are difŽcult to accurately represent, perceive, and visualize with traditional static media. Examples can be found in complex Želds such as immunology, astronomy, relativistic dynamics, quantum mechanics, and rainforest ecology. We wanted to create a system that would be suitable for a diverse target audience that includes several types of educational venues, such as high school, college, and university institutions, museums and other public places, and independent student use. Although we do not feel that 3-D graphics technology can entirely replace conventional classroom teaching techniques, we are convinced that properly implemented virtual environments can serve as valuable supplemental teaching and learning resources to augment and reinforce traditional methods. The Virtual Explorer project employs a two-tiered approach to demonstrating VR’s potential for scientiŽc visualization, as well as to creating interactive virtual environments for education. First, we’ve developed a proof-of-concept