Virtual Reality at William Paterson To support new media and research technologies, Instruction & Research Technology (IRT) has increased its virtual reality (VR) equipment support on campus. Through Equipment Lending web help tickets faculty have access to two 15” Dell Mobile Precision 7750 workstation laptops and Oculus Rift S headsets. With 8GB GDDR6 Quadro RTX4000 graphic cards and 32GB DDR4 RAM, this 8 core Intel i7 has more than enough power to support the high-end graphical needs of advanced VR content creation and avant-garde visuals. Additionally, our HPZ backpack has been updated to the latest HP Reverb G2 Omnicept headset, providing an amazing tether free VR solution. State of the art visualization technology and new biometric sensors are providing exciting new features to existing software and personal projects. Eye tracking, facial tracking, and heartrate monitoring, among other data, enhance the features and user experience of our Ovation VR public speaking trainer or your own projects and research. For years, the Department of Art under the expertise of Prof. Michael Rees, have used VR headsets for their content creation. Utilizing platform specific modeling and painting programs, such as Medium by Adobe, or proprietary environments programmed and created in Unity, users have been generating sculptural content for virtual reality, augmented reality, and the physical world. Meanwhile, Prof. Jeung Woon Lee, in the Department of Biology, is utilizing virtual reality for custom curricular aids. Working with the cloud based WebGL and WebXR developer kit Amazon Sumerian, Prof Lee is creating new, network accessible, interactive VR projects for his students, expanding their competencies and visualization methods. For more information on how to integrate virtual reality technology into your teaching, how to enhance your current research with new visualization technologies, or how to add a new tool for content creation to your project, or if you are just interested in new ways of viewing media, please reach out to Chris Weber (weberc@wpunj.edu or call extension 3288), IRT’s Media Technician, serving the University’s computer graphics and visualization technology needs. November 22, 2021
