Research for the Smale Interactive Visualization Center

Miami University's Virtual Reality and Visualization Lab

Decontamination Training Simulation

I worked with clients at Miami University Nursing School, Wright State School of Nursing, and University of Cincinnati school of Nursing to develop a virtual training system for nursing students and staff on proper decontamination of a patient. Using a hand position tracking controller, subjects are able to interact with the virtual space in an immersive way. I am currently working to develop a training version and a scored testing version. This project was developed in Unity3D.

The System uses the Razer Hydra to allow the user to actually interact with the virtual environment with their hands.  The Hydras are extremely accurate and allow us to take six axis data from each hand.  This increases the immersion of the user.  Subjects are able to pick up and select items around them and can interact with the patient.

The system is currently designed for introductory level training for students on general decontamination of a patient exposed to radiological, chemical, or biological contaminants. With the recent Ebola outbreak in Africa, we have begun researching and planning development of an ebola specific variant designed to run on lower power machines for shipment overseas.

Cincinnati Children's NICU Evacuation VR Training

Working with the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, we created virtual training simulations on how to properly evacuate neonate babies under different circumstances and as different roles. For this simulation we recreated the NICU in a one to one scale in a digital space for nurses to train in VR.  This will allow the nurses to train more frequently and effectively.  Training for these scenarios no longer requires the wing to be shut down and all staff to participate.  

I started working on the initial prototyping for the project in January of 2015.  At that point I was still the only student working for the SIVC.  I worked on prototyping the NPC character behaviors, the look and click answer system, and the structure and flow of the simulation.  After developing several early versions, I left to intern at NASA for the summer and after that I worked for Ascape VR in San Francisco for a semester.  When I returned the SIVC had grow to a development team to support the project.  As the Lead Developer I was tasked with taking the rough scenarios that the other developers had built and making them shipment ready.  I worked on creating the character controllers for the NPC Nurses, navigation, lighting, bug fixing, implementing new assets from our 3D artist, optimization, development of the VR Interfaces, and working to ensure the scenarios met all requirements for the hospital and Miami.

See it here on Cincinnati news: http://wvxu.org/post/virtual-reality-evacuation-training-childrens#stream/0