Recreating the Past with Virtual Reality

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Recreating the Past with Virtual Reality

Tue, 08/22/2017 - 8:55am 2 Comments by Ryan Bushey - Digital Editor - @R_Bushey

Source: Lithodomos VR

Virtual reality (VR) is providing intriguing opportunities for companies to create new products. This emerging technology has yielded applications in healthcare, where aspiring physicians can view realistic simulations to prepare themselves for surgeries. Entertainment has become another area of growth for VR, and a swath of tech firms and movie studios have developed immersive experiences where users can further explore the worlds found in their favorite movies. However, one startup in Australia called Lithodomos VR has taken a different approach to harnessing this enterprising technology. The firm is utilizing VR to `recreate' historical archaeological sites like Acropolis in Athens, Greece, and the Colosseum in Rome. Lithodomos VR offers a fulll library of content featuring historical landmarks that be viewed via VR. Lithodomos VR's software can be used at a historical site to make the experience more immersive, or as an educational tool elsewhere.

"Today, many of the ancient world's secrets lie buried or destroyed. For most people, seeing a pile of ruins is hard to contextualize and visualize what was once there,"said Dr. Simon Young, the co-founder and CEO of Lithodomos VR, to R&D Magazine. "Virtual Reality is the perfect tool to reconstruct these ancient places and spaces, allowing people to explore them in a 3D environment when they are on site, or from thousands of miles away in their own home or classroom."

To view these digital restorations, users can either pay a one-time royalty fee anytime they want to access the archive for a tour or pay a small fee to set up a recurring subscription. Significant effort goes into creating each virtual reconstruction, said Young.

"Our reconstructions stem from academic publications and research to ensure experiences are as accurate, realistic and enthralling and engaging as possible. This practice rests upon the foundation of a long tradition of archaeological reconstruction practices. First, detailed published archaeological reports are gathered, and these form the basis of our scope. Next, archaeologists work intensively with our team of 3D artists to direct the meshing and texturing of the project. Finally, the scenes are signed off by the lead archaeologist and delivered to our library. The time needed for the process varies a great deal depending on the complexity of the scene, but on average, a few weeks," explained Young.

Their offerings can be downloaded through Google and Apple's respective app store.

Putting history in perspective

Young said that the goal of his venture is to offer people the ability to instantly form a connection with the place they are in.

"Some ancient sites attract thousands of visitors every day, but most of the time these visitors can't connect on a personal level to the ruins," he continued.

The mobile VR headsets used to view these locales are intended to be like, "binoculars into the past," which can enhance and enrich each viewpoint from a variety of locations.

Young acknowledged that visitors have an obvious fascination with "big ticket destinations" like Rome and Athens, but he noted Lithodomos also sees immense value in building models of archaeological sites that are less well-understood.

One example in Lithodomos's library is the Odeion of Agrippa located in Athenian Agora.

This destination was once a concert hall that would have once hosted events like musical performances, poetry recitations, and exhibitions of rhetorical skills. It was constructed around 15 B.C. with a seating capacity of about 1,000. It was built by a member of the Roman elite that Young felt was viewed as a symbol of Rome's respect for contributions the Greek culture made to humanity.

"Today it is mass of ruins that visitors pass by without a second thought," Young noted adding that his company brought the location back to life in its full glory.

The Future for Embracing the Past

There are a lot of advantages for using VR in providing deeper insights into history, but there are some disadvantages as well.

Young said that when the content creation process is taken up by non-specialists, the results can lack scientific rigor and accuracy.

"As content creators of cultural heritage materials, we have a responsibility to strive to ensure that the information presented to viewers is correct and backed up by solid research," he explained.

Young noted his company is always looking for new frontiers and opportunities where they can expand their content library including potential sites in China, India, and South Korea. Also, they are finishing work on their distribution platform so customers can undertake self-guided tours of any place with enhanced audio capabilities.

Ultimately, Young's thoughts on the future of VR is that the wave of popularity is building, but will crash down in the future.

"In time, everyone will have a VR headset, but penetration rates are slower than originally anticipated. Many have taken this as a sign that VR will peter out ? it will not," said Young.

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Startup Harnesses VR to Help Train Surgeons

Fri, 08/25/2017 - 1:33pm by Ryan Bushey - Digital Editor - @R_Bushey

Source: Medical Realities

Google Glass received a polarizing response when it was launched in May 2013. The optical head-mounted display was conceived as the next generation of computing, as it gave users the ability to make phone calls, check email, view pictures, and perform other taks, all with a couple of swipes. Issues related to privacy, and other factors hindered widespread adoption of the device amongst the general population, but interest in its possible niche applications, particularly within the healthcare space have grown over the past few years. Cancer specialist and surgeon Dr. Shafi Ahmed, M.D. recognized the potential Google Glass could have in medical training. The physician used the device to live stream an operation performed on a cancer patient last year that was filmed via two 360-degree cameras and a number of lenses situated around the OR. Medical students, aspiring surgeons, and other viewers could see and hear what was happening during the procedure thanks to streams filtering through a mobile app and specialized viewing headset. Ahmed saw the potential of this technology to help teach surgeons in locations where they may not have as much exposure to more complex or novel medical procedures.

Findings from a 2015 Lancet Commission on Global Surgery indicated that about five billion people living in low and middle-income countries do not have access to safe, affordable surgical procedures. Also, the report noted 143 million additional surgical procedures are needed in these countries each year to save lives and prevent disability.

Factors like this motivated Ahmed to team up with virtual reality pioneer Steve Dann to create a new venture called Medical Realities. Dann serves as the company's co-founder and CEO and Dr. Ahmed operates as the Chief Medical Officer. The startup's goal is harness novel virtual reality technology to deliver accessible surgical training videos to anyone in the world. Using VR technology, students and doctors alike have the ability to view and learn from immersive 360 degree viewing of actual operations, through the eyes of the training surgeon. The company's technology offers a unique experience by providing a real time library, database, interactive content, and a potential syllabus to train the next generations of doctors, said Dann. "The teaching methods used by hospitals have not changed for over 130 years. Tests and examinations based on observing operations are expensive and not scalable," said Dann in an interview with R&D Magazine. Medical Realities splits their software offerings into modules. "At the moment we film all the surgical footage ourselves, which is then collated using our proprietary post production system to create our fully interactive teaching modules," said Dann. These programs are filmed versions of different procedures, and users receive a walkthrough of the process while also completing tests on their knowledge of the surgical procedure.

Dann noted the depth of experience viewers could gain from using these programs.

"Surgical operative experience entails both cognitive decision-making (based on procedural knowledge) and technical ability. However, intra-operative decision-making is arguably as important as technical skill in the successful completion of a surgical procedure."

The company is currently working with The Royal Hospital London and Bari University, and a number of hospitals and universities around the world have expressed interest in working with the firm, according to Dann.

"We provide our partners with copies of the filmed footage, which they can use for their own purposes and we of course can use the footage for our training modules," said Dann.

Essentially, students interested in using this technology can download the software to view it through a number of headsets that support virtual reality viewing like Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR, and Google Daydream.

Dann expects to see numerous uses of VR and its augmented reality (AR) counterpart in the healthcare space. Some examples include using VR in therapy, anxiety treatment, and pain reduction, whereas AR could be used for tele-monitoring and remote diagnostics and training.

Next, Medical Realities will focus on bolstering its library of operations and teaching modules as well as initiate a series of livestreamed operations within the coming year.

You can watch Ahmed's surgery from last year below.

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Advancements in Virtual Reality Device Development

Tue, 08/29/2017 - 2:14pm by Ryan Bushey - Digital Editor - @R_Bushey

Although it may seem futuristic, the concept of virtual reality has actually been around for a long time. In 1938, playwright Antonin Artaud wrote a series of essays referring to the illusory nature of characters and objects in the theater as "la realite virtuelle." An English translation of his work published in 1958 was called "The Theater and its Double", which marked the earliest published use of the term "virtual reality." The first multimedia device in the form of an interactive theater experience was invented in 1957, according to the Virtual Reality Society. Known as the Sensorama, the technology consisted of a viewing screen within an enclosed booth that displayed stereoscopic images,

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