Virtual reality across the disciplines
In the last twenty years, a set of studies applied VR in different learning paths.
VR became a tool for training undergraduate students in the correct use of instrumentations and for respecting the safety rules in the laboratory activities. VR allows instructors to deliver complex information in a visual way, permitting trainees to simulate, with VR technologies, situations which in real-life could be potentially dangerous.
Bell and Fogler (1995) introduced Vicher (Virtual Chemical Reaction module), an educational application of virtual reality designed to give an aid in the instruction of undergraduate chemical reaction engineering. The goals, in producing Vicher, can be organized in three points, as the authors stated:
Provide an educational environment in which chemical reactor design students can explore first-hand the concepts which they have studied in class,
Provide in-depth reactor design and computer programming training to the students who are helping to develop Vicher, and
Develop a knowledge base concerning the application of virtual reality techniques to educational applications. This knowledge base may be the strongest benefit of the project, as it can then be applied to more complex applications and more advanced hardware in future developments (p.2).
Vicher has been developed at the University of Michigan Chemical Engineering Department and represented the first known application of VR to chemical engineering education, but without difficulties. About the application of VR as an educational tool, Bell and Fogler (1995) observed that in engineering and other technical areas, a lot of simulation difficulties must be identified and solved. For example, the compromise between the speed and the display quality and the price of low-cost PCs.
In 1995, a set of studies described a lot of applications of virtual reality in surgical education and in medicine. For example, Ota, Loftin, Saito, Lea, and Keller (1995) presented VR as an emerging technology that can teach surgeons new procedures and can determine their level of competence before they operate on real patients. They affirmed that VR in medical training could reduce expensive animal training model enhancing the operative field.
Other studies introduced telepresence surgery, 3D visualization of anatomy for medical education, complex medical database visualization, VR surgical simulators, and virtual prototyping of surgical equipment and operating rooms, and rehabilitation (Satava, 1995a, 1995b; Satava, & Jones, 1996). Satava (1995a) wrote:
Today, approximately 90% of the knowledge a physician requires can be obtained through electronic means, such as diagnostic sensors and imaging modalities, directly seeing the patient with a video camera for medical consultation, or using electronic medical records. In addition, with telepresence, a therapy can be effected electronically, regardless of the physical location of the patient. Therefore, it makes sense to send the electronic information or manipulation, rather than sending the patient or blood samples, to obtain tests or to produce a cure. In that these applications are mediated through the computer interface, they are the embodiment of VR as the major force for change in the field of medicine. (p. 12)
Antonietti, Imperio, Rasi, and Sacco (1999, 2000, 2001) propose a prototypal system for machine tools teaching in a virtual reality environment integrated with hypermedia. The goal is to lead undergraduate students involved (54 students divided in studies) not only to understand the structure and function of the lathe, but also to use such a machine. To reach this, the prototype tries to foster conceptual changes in students’ mental models and to increase students’ control over the learning process. A series of experimental tests have been carried out to assess the educational validity of the instructional tool which has been devised. The aim of the first phase of the project was to assess whether students could easily use the virtual lathe and to verify what they learn about such a machine. The purpose of the second phase was to focus on some critical aspects of the learning process activated by using the virtual lathe in order to realize the instructional procedures which give the best learning outcomes. These studies demonstrated that the VR can help in the comprehension of some core machining concepts. In particular, novice students benefit from free navigation in the virtual environment, training themselves in the use of real lathe. VR allows the training in safety.
All these educational experiences emphasize that one current problem with using VR is the cost to realize immersive VR environments. The price may drop if the market grows, but in terms of products for education, we have to pay much for modest quality hardware and software.
Gerval et al. (2002) have examined VR’s potential in the multicultural integration in the primary schools. The project, named EVE (Environment Virtuels pour Enfants), involves nine primary schools from three different countries (France, Morocco and Romania). The EVE application was developed in order to help the primary school children learn French, and especially, reading. The project’s goals are:
To create a new cooperative environment for learning which involves young students from three different countries;
To realize new kind of pedagogical software tool for primary school children.
From a pedagogical point of view, EVE project intends to promote teamwork, involving children from different countries in cooperative work. They have to achieve a common task together, in hopes that this will encourage the respect in a multicultural framework. This project implements distributed virtual reality technologies. From both perspectives, it is like a NICE-environment, narrative immersive constructionist and collaborative.
Different universities use the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) to realize VR’s low-cost applications. VRML is a language that specifies the parameters to create virtual worlds networked together via the Internet and accessed via Web hyperlinks. VRML was conceived in the spring of 1994, and it was presented to the first annual World Wide Web conference in Geneva, Switzerland (Evans, 1995). Consensus is what enables so many developers with different tools to enrich a single but rapidly expanding universe of VRML objects and worlds, all of which can be experienced by anyone who has a VRML viewer, regardless of who made it (Blackburn, Henderson & Welz, 1996). VRML defines a set of objects and functions for modeling simple 3D graphics. These are known as nodes, which are arranged in hierarchies called scene graphs. There is a top-down arrangement in which nodes that are described earlier in a scene affect later ones, but this can be limited by the use of separator nodes (Bouras & Filopoulos, 1998). The aim of VRML is to bring to the Internet the advantages of 3D spaces, known in VRML as worlds whether they compromise environments or single objects. These are built to be shared between widely distributed users. A VRML file is an ASCII file (with the suffix .wrl), which is interpreted by the browser (for example: Cosmoplayer®, FreeWRL VRML/X3D, Cortona) and converted into a 3D display of the described world. VRML connects virtual reality to the WWW and to cyberspace.
D'Atri, Missikoff, and Pauselli (2002) realized Fairsnet: a virtual environment for supporting business. Fairsnet was developed with the collaboration between IGstudents Foundation (the Italian branch of Young Enterprise Europe, YEE) and the Center for Research on Information Systems (CeRSI) of the Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome. It describes a Web environment for managing real and virtual trade fairs. The aim of the Young Enterprise Europe Programme is to create a connection between the worlds of education and employment (D'Atri, Missikoff, & Pauselli, 2002).
Virtual Reality is a medium for making abstract concepts concrete (Rosemblum & Cross, 1997, Sala, 2013a).
The abstractness of scientific topics creates difficulties in their understanding (Byrne, 1996; Millar, 1991; Sala, 2002, 2013a; Youngblut, 1998; Zoller, 1990) .
In agreement to these considerations, Sala and Sala (2005) analyzed the contribution of multimedia technologies and VR in university courses of mathematics and information technology to a faculty of architecture in Switzerland. In this educational project, the term “virtual reality” has been used to cover both immersive and non-immersive Virtual Reality. The technology was used first to help architecture students to visualize in 3D, since this is arguably the most difficult part of understanding architecture. The topic dedicated to the polyhedra and their interconnections between nature and architecture is an excellent example of an abstract topic that is difficult to learn.
The undergraduate students used the virtual reality technologies in different ways (Sala, 2002a). For example,
To observe and to rotate the platonic solids and the polyhedra from the different points of view (outside and inside the virtual objects),
To create some virtual objects using VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language),
To observe and to interact the molecules of carbon (C60 and C70),
To observe and to manipulate the geodesic domes,
To study and to observe the symmetry presents in the crystals, and
To create virtual trees using fractal algorithms.
Figure 6 shows two virtual objects: a molecule of carbon and a geodesic dome, respectively. Students can interact with them, via a low cost VR system. They can go inside the molecule and the dome, observing their symmetries and analogies of the shape. Students have the psychological feeling to interact, in “natural” way, with a molecule; overcoming the dimensional limits imposed in real life.
Figure 6. A molecule of carbon and a geodesic dome created using VRML. |
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In graduate courses, VR has been analyzed as a medium to create virtual towns and virtual worlds. Students created virtual territories using fractal algorithms and fractal procedures.
During the study, Sala and Sala (2005) emphasized the connections between virtual reality, fractal geometry, and computer graphics to realize some virtual worlds. The students also generated trees, mountains, lakes, and special effects using fractal algorithms (Guérin, Tosan, & Baskurt, 2002; Sala, 2002a, 2009a, 2012; Sala, Metzeltin, & Sala, 2002). Figure 7 shows an example of computer generated virtual terrain using fractal procedures. VR is also connected with the Internet and cyberspace. In particular, it has been interesting to analyze the virtual communities and the virtual cities with their sociology implications (Sala, 2002b).
Figure 7. Virtual terrain created using fractal procedures (Fractal landscape, 2015) |
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Virtual reality has been integrated in a training path to visualize the projects connected to the territory or to realize some “virtual buildings” which students can visit (Sala & Sala, 2005).
In order to effectively apply VR as an educational tool in architecture and other technical areas, Sala and Sala (2005) observed a set of problems connected to the technology. For example,
Low resolution of inexpensive viewing devices which made unrealistic objects,
Difficulties to maintain high frame rates on personal computers, and
High costs of hardware and software devices to realize immersive VR.
Sala and Sala (2005) also observed that interaction with virtual objects promotes learning of their features. Knowledge and especially the understanding are better, in quantity and quality, than watching the reality or books’ images.