Virtual Reality: The Future is Now

You’ve probably seen or heard of Virtual Reality (VR) technology by now. Most likely you know that it’s being used to make a lot of cool video games. Maybe you’ve even heard of major titles like Beat Saber or the looming juggernaut of Half-Life: Alyx. But VR has boatloads of potential for uses and applications outside of just fun and games; its inherently immersive and interactive nature makes it an incredible tool for anything from high-end art pieces to detailed medical modelling.

Last year, I was lucky enough to visit an art installation in Sherbrooke (about a 45 minute drive east of Melbourne). It was a 1930s era mansion that was planned to be converted into a luxury hotel, but instead, street artist Tyrone Wright spent a year or so turning it into an art piece. There were murals covering the walls, branches and roots running every which way, a room flooded with water, dead leaves piled on top of 50% of the floorspace; it was stunning. The coolest thing about it, however, was that at the end, after you had walked through and seen all the rooms, you sat down and put on a VR headset. You got to see each room as it initially was when Wright first walked in, as well as witnessing a step-by-step progression of works done on each room. All of this was accompanied by narration discussing the piece and the processes.

Our school also has VR equipment of its own, two systems to be precise, but only one is currently active. Late last year, the school bought them with the STEM budget and has been experimenting for the past few months with different software, exploring the possibilities and limitations of this new medium. There isn’t a clear picture of how precisely VR will be used in different classes and across year levels, but the two models were selected with slightly different applications in mind. The HTC Vive Pro headset is the one currently in use and can be seen proudly on display in downstairs B-block most of the time. It sports a high resolution and refresh rate (1440x1600p per eye, 90hz), meaning sharp images and smooth motion. The Vive will most likely be used by junior year levels, for more basic experiences to acquaint them with VR and get them used to the concept. The other system, the Oculus Rift S, has slightly lower numbers on it than the Vive (1280x1440 per eye, 80hz), though it comes with better development tools and more complex controllers, allowing for more detailed interaction. It also features inside-out tracking, where the system uses cameras on the headset to calculate the position of the controllers and the headpiece which makes it more portable, at the cost of less precise tracking. The Oculus model will probably be used more by senior students, to create and interact rather than to simply observe.

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If you’re reading this in your last year or two at NHS, chances are that VR won’t become an integrated part of any of your classes. This doesn’t mean that you’ll never have the chance to try it out, though. Mr Murphy has been demoing the Vive at various events for some time, and probably will be for a while to come. If you’re in the lower year levels, then look forward to using this brand new technology.

So, students probably aren’t going to be using VR in regular classes anytime soon, but the school is developing plans for the future. The hope is that every faculty will be able to put VR to good use: viewing 3-D diagrams of atoms, organs or star systems in science, modifying and interacting with models in design (similar to what Ford has been doing for some time now), visiting important events and places in history, watching 360° videos either from the internet or made with the school’s 360° camera, and much more.