DATASCAPE

A PC based 3D immersive training application to train radio system managers at the US Federal Emergency Management Agency to co-ordinate police, fire, medics and national guard in response to major disasters. We managed to interface Unity to a military-grade Combat Net radio simulator, so that the radios behaved like their real-world counterparts. The environment was so natural and accurate that first time users during testing in Los Angeles just sat down at the virtual table and started configuring the radios without further instruction.

​Training staff in NYC's Office of Emergency Management on how to set-up, operate, and tear-down a hurricane shelter in a public school building. The 2-3hr simulation was in use a year before Superstorm Sandy, and used after that storm to help generate lessons learned.

​In an AHRC funded project Bournemouth University and the National Trust are using Trainingscapes to explore the use of VR in heritage communication and outreach. Visitors to the museum at Avebury are able to walk through the site as it was 2-3000 years ago, and it is giving the heritage professionals themselves a new appreciation of how the site may have functioned. As a multi-user system they can even go in as a group to examine and discuss the site.

Since the OU is all about distance-learning they were looking for a better solution for geology students who couldn't go on field-trips rather than just giving them a bunch of photos, maps and samples. So we worked with them to digitise 100 sq km of the Lake District around Skiddaw, and produce details models of the 6 specific sites that are used on the field trip. We even scanned in individual samples from each site. The students could then go on multi-user field trips, complete with their tutor, from the comfort of their on home! As well as the walkthrough video above there is also an OU video reviewing the project and we also have a short case study available.

Home visits are a key part of a social worker's life, but are notoriously hard to train for. Whilst roleplay can help the fact that the role-play is typically done in the classroom loses the immersion, and its only available when the course sets it up. Creating a home visit in VR eliminates both these issues - offering full immersion and 24/7 learning. Read the case study to find out how we helped the OU create a home visit learning experience for their social work students.

With Bournemouth University we've also developed a training exercise for students to practice their response to a diabetes situation with an in-patient on the ward. The exercises was used for an A-B comparison with traditional eLearning and students on the 3D/VR exercise which found that the latter group performed "significantly better". Several research papers are coming, but our favourite student response was "“I really enjoyed it. Can we have more scenarios please?”!

​Bournemouth University have developed a number of exercises on Trainingscapes to help train their midwifery and nursing students.  The first dealt with a surgery session on Urinalysis with an expectant mother. The second was on safeguarding training and home visits for healthcare professionals, and the third deals with a post-partum haemorrhage. 

​An ongoing project where BCHC are using an immersive environment to help those who have lost the ability to do basic day to day navigation tasks as a result of brain damage from accidents or strokes to recover that ability. The editor allows the staff to lay out different combinations of distal and proximal waymarks (e.g. a church spire or a street sign) and lay out different routes for the patient to follow.  

Extracts from 4 projects including a Bereavement Care project for University Hospital Birmingham, and a Paramedic Assessment project for St George's Hospital, London. Note that whilst both these projects used the PIVOTE engine which is embedded in Trainingscapes they were delivered using older virtual worlds/visualisation technology.

​Two years before the new Library of Birmingham opened we delivered a digital copy to Birmingham's Library Services so they could explore it, try different layout, share with the community, and work with sub-contractors to ensure that when the Library opened there were no surprises and all worked smoothly.

This project created a virtual inner-city environment which young people could explore in order to understand and discuss issues such as tribalism, gang culture, discrimination and knife crime. The system was used at Youth Clubs in Glasgow. Some of the virtual streets were so "mean" that people didn't want to walk down them, and the in-world "bullies" were able to "push" users by getting in their face - which really un-nerved the players!

​View our on-line book showing examples of over 20 different projects we did in the Second Life virtual world for a variety of clients covering training, education, virtual campus, research and marketing projects. 

Virtual Laboratories give students the chance to practice laboratory equipment procedure before conducting the same tasks in the physical world. We have completed Virtual Lab projects for both the University of Leicester and the University of Hong Kong. The video below shows the Leicester lab, part of their Swift project. 

There were two elements to this project, both based around a virtual street. The first allowed students to work through a set of asynchronous training scenarios dealing with a variety of customer and admin issues in an electrical shop, and then moved into a synchronous role-playing exercise using avatars to help suspend disbelief. The second let students practice number based Key Skills by visiting shops to help organise a staff party!