One of our recent project deliveries at Agility3 was a highly realistic virtual 3D environment to be used within a Virtual Reality (VR) application.
The requirement came from SINTEF, one of Europe’s largest independent research organisations, who have been developing a simulator that enables children to experience cycling within a VR environment. Integrated with a real bicycle, the purpose of the simulator is to help children practice their road cycling and become familiar with road layouts and markings. Eye tracking technology is also being used to carry out research on where the children’s’ focus is when cycling around the road environment to understand what may cause them to become distracted.
For this simulator, SINTEF needed a highly realistic virtual representation of a real cycle track in the Trondheim area of Norway which the children could cycle around within their VR application. Having worked with Agility3 on previous projects, SINTEF approached us with this requirement, and we were very happy to support them.
The environment we created incorporated a cycle track network complete with a roundabout, various junctions, road markings, signage, traffic lights, vegetation and more, all replicating with a high degree of accuracy the environment of the real cycle track. It was crucial that the whole environment was optimised to work efficiently within Virtual Reality to avoid any latency issues and reduce the chance of motion sickness – particularly with children involved! We were able to ensure this through our own internal testing procedures.
Jo Skjermo, the Lead Research Scientist for this project from SINTEF said:
“SINTEF are very pleased with the 3D terrain of the Eberg Traffic Arena delivered by Agility3. The landscape is very close to how it looks in reality and gives you a very good impression of being there when using VR. This was confirmed from the preliminary test with children who are familiar with the real-world site. This was important for us to confirm, so that we can use it as an evaluation tool. Not only was the quality of the delivered environment very high but working with Agility3 was also very straightforward and easy.”
About SINTEF
SINTEF are one of the largest independent research organisations in Europe. They have international top-level expertise in the fields of technology, the natural sciences, medicine and the social sciences. They carry out thousands of R&D projects every year to support value creation and increased competitiveness within public and private sectors and offer world-leading laboratory and test facilities. Their vision is “Technology for a better society”.
This article was written by Louis Drakes, Business Coordinator at Agility3. If you would like to learn more, please get in touch at louis.drakes@agility3.co.uk or call on (+44) 01438 488066. We look forward to hearing from you.