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XR Course and Research Integration
XR, or Extended Realities, is an umbrella term used to discuss the various technologies of VR (Virtual Reality), AR (Augmented Reality) and MR (Mixed Reality). These technologies, including headmounted displays and 360 cameras, can positively impact learning across subjects. The library's VR Lab is the home to the XR equipment and resources on campus.
Course Integration
The pedagogical possibilities of Extended Realities (XR) are wide and offer many options for curriculum integration. The following are some examples of what integration could look like.
| Library Visits | Visit the VR Lab in the Library with your class. Students can:
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| Class Visits | Book a Library XR specialist to visit your class (in-person or virtually) and deliver one of our customized orientations or workshops. This is a great way to introduce technologies that students may use for projects in the course. | ||||||||||
| Student Projects | Develop a project for students with Library staff to utilize resources from the VR Lab and incorporate XR. See the Spotlight Projects below for examples. | ||||||||||
| Content Creation | Utilize resources from the VR Lab to capture your own 360° content or develop an XR experience to create new material for your courses or research. Great if you participate in field schools or conferences. | ||||||||||
| COVID-19 Online Course and Virtual Options |
There are a variety of ways to incorporate XR elements into online courses or while teaching remotely. See some examples below.
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Workshops
The VR Lab offers workshops on a variety of XR technologies and resources. To find out when the workshop or orientation you are interested in is being offered, please check the Library programming calendar or contact the Library.
| Beginner’s Guide to... |
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| XR Toolkit Series |
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| Orientations |
Equipment Available
The VR Lab features various types of equipment to support XR including VR headsets and 360 cameras. This equipment is available for checkout by all MRU students, faculty and staff through the VR Lab. Equipment can be reserved through the Library website.
The equipment avialable is:
| VR Headsets | VR generates a virtual environment that the user is able to enter and interact with a headset and controller(s). The lab has a variety of VR headsets including: |
| AR Devcies | AR displays digital information into the real world. It often operates through smartphones or other mobile devices. The lab equipment for AR includes: |
| MR Headsets | MR (mixed reality) combines both VR and AR and anchors projected digital objects in real space. Users can see and interact with both the real, physical world as well as the digital objects. |
| 360° Cameras | 360 Cameras allow the user to capture their entire environment with one click. If you would like more information about the cameras you can review the ‘Beginner’s Guide to 360° Cameras’ document. The lab has the following cameras available: |
Resources
The VR Lab has a wide range of resources to support the consumption and creation of XR, from someone just starting to learn about the technology to the app developer.
There are General Resources, including software, and Collection Resources.
General Resources
| Experince Lab Drop-in | The VR Lab has drop-in hours with a dedicated Library staff member available to provide support using and creating XR content. Hours vary on a per-semester basis, please see the Library calendar for up to date hours. | ||||||||
| Consultations | If you are looking for one-on-one advice, please book a consultation with our Emerging Technologies Specialist. | ||||||||
| Selected Readings | Learn about the impact XR has on education.
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| Development Tools |
There are a variety of ways to incorporate XR elements into your online delivery of courses or while teaching remotely.
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| Other Post Secondary XR Labs | Learn how other post-secondary institutions are integrating XR into their teaching and research. |
Collection Resources
Below are some highlighted resources from the XR collection.
VR Experience Collection
| Google Earth VR | Explore the Earth in VR. Journey to the Rockies, Amazon River, the Manhattan skyline, the Swiss Alps, and more. Upload your own 360 images for others to experience. |
| Oculus Medium | Oculus Medium is a VR creative tool utilized for rapid prototyping. It’s a versatile and intuitive toolkit designed for 3D modeling with speed and fluidity. Whether you're a beginner or professional, quickly create 3D objects that can be easily exported and viewed on AR platforms. |
| Tilt Brush | Tilt Brush lets you paint in a 3D space with VR. Showcase your creations on Google Poly for others to view. |
| Mondly: Learn Languages in VR | Build your fluency in 30 languages: English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Arabic, Russian, Korean, Japanese, Chinese & more. Virtual characters will give you instant feedback on your pronunciation and suggestions that enrich your vocabulary that make learning a language a unique experience. |
| Becoming Homeless: A Human Expereince | In this immersive VR experience from Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, spend days in the life of someone who can no longer afford a home. Interact with your environment to attempt to save your home and to protect yourself and your belongings as you walk in another’s shoes and face the adversity of living with diminishing resources. |
| Medical Realities | Medical Realities is an award-winning virtual reality education platform for medical students, surgical trainees, surgeons, and health care professionals. The platform offers a comprehensive collection of surgical operations and includes assessment. Each module allows immersive learning with full interactive features including anatomy and pathophysiology. |
| The Highway of Tears: a Virtual Reality Documentary | Ramona Wilson was 16 years old when she left her home in Smithers, British Columbia on June 11th, 1994. Her body was discovered eight months later, but her killer has never been found. In September, the Canadian government officially launched an inquiry into Canada's missing and murdered Indigenous women. In this immersive documentary, Ramona’s mother, Matilda, shares her story of personal loss and ongoing search for answers. |
| Altspace VR | AltspaceVR is the easiest way to meet people from around the world, attend free live events, and design your own virtual worlds. Choose from over 28 activities or attend live events with researchers, educators, comedians, authors, celebrities, and more. |
| Chernobyl VR Project | Chernobyl VR uses advanced 3D scans of locations and buildings, spherical photography, stereoscopic videos, and augmented reality to explore the story of this abandoned place and the people it impacted. |
| Anne Frank House | Travel back to the Second World War and wander through the rooms of the Annex that housed 8 Jewish people as they hid from the Nazis. Immerse yourself in Anne’s thoughts as you traverse each faithfully recreated room, thanks to the power of VR, and find out what happened to the brave inhabitants. |
| Anthropocene VR | The Anthropocene Project is a multidisciplinary body of work from world-renowned collaborators Nicholas de Pencier, Edward Burtynsky and Jennifer Baichwal. Combining art, film, virtual reality, augmented reality, and scientific research, the project investigates human influence on the state, dynamic and future of the Earth. |
| We Wait | Based on BBC News interviews with migrants, We Wait is a dramatised story transporting you to the heart of the refugee crisis. Aardman’s experience in animation and storytelling comes together to make this look and feel radically different from any other documentary VR experience to date. |
| Guided Meditation VR | Experience guided meditation in VR. |
| Nefertari: Journey to Eternity | Through the use of photogrammetry and laser scanning it is now possible to step inside Queen Nefertari's tomb, one of the modern world's most detailed windows into ancient Egyptians' journey towards the afterlife. Immerse yourself in the story of its art, history, construction, and mythology through interactive elements. |
| War Remains: Dan Carlin Presents An Immersive Memory | Presented by Hardcore History ® legendary podcaster Dan Carlin, War Remains is an immersive VR experience that transports viewers into the Western Front of the First World War. Witness history unfold from a soldier's point-of-view in this thought-provoking, visceral experience. |
AR Experience Collection
| Google Translate | Google Translate’s AR feature includes a real-time visual translation. See the words change in front of your eye as you hold up your smartphone camera and focus on the text. By downloading the offline language packs users can translate selected languages offline or import an image for a higher quality translation. |
| Vuforia Chalk | Vuforia Chalk facilitates AR remote assistance between your experts and field technicians. It's an easy way to solve complex or unfamiliar problems. This AR app helps to reduce repair time and travel costs, as well as support knowledge transfer within your workforce. Vuforia Chalk combines live video, audio and the ability for both the remote and local participant to annotate their live shared view. Annotations in Chalk accurately stick to real-world objects, even when people move around. |
| Star Walk | An AR astronomy guide to explore the night sky, identify stars, constellations, planets, satellites, asteroids, comets, ISS, Hubble Space Telescope and other celestial bodies in real time in the sky above you. All you need to do is to point your device to the sky. |
| Google Expeditions |
Google Expeditions is an immersive learning and teaching tool that lets you go on VR trips or explore AR objects. Explore historical landmarks, go down to the atomic level, get up close with sharks, even visit outer space! In the classroom or with groups, Google Expeditions allows a teacher acting as a 'guide' to lead classroom-sized groups of 'explorers' through VR tours or show them AR objects. Guides can use a set of tools to point out interesting things along the way. |
| Augment | Augment is a mobile app that lets you and your colleagues visualize your 3D models in AR, integrated in real time in their actual size and environment. Add your own 3D models and custom trackers on http://augment.com. |
| Measure | Measure helps you with quick everyday measurements around the house or office, similar to a tape measure |
| SketchAR | This AR app puts 398+ virtual images (Anime, Hieroglyphs, Portraits, Wildlife, Graffiti and more) on a surface to let you trace drawings from your phone. |
| Google Lens | Google Lens lets you search what you see on your Android or iOS device, get things done faster, and understand the world around you—using just your camera or a photo. Some features include the ability to scan and translate text, identify plants and animals and scan QR codes. I Found a look you like? Use Google lens to find similar clothing or home decor with the click of a button. |
| WallaMe | Hide messages in the real world using augmented reality. Take a picture of a wall near you, add pictures or freehand sketches and share your creation with your friends. Your augmented reality wall can then be viewed by your friends when they are in the location where you created it. You can also make your wall public, so everyone passing by the physical location can use the WallaMe unique viewer to see your augmented reality Wall. |
| Just a Line | Just a Line is an AR experiment that lets you make simple drawings in augmented reality, then share your creation with a short video. Draw on your own or with a friend, then hit record and share what you made. |
| Insight Heart | Insight Heart is an expedition to the human heart. A virtual companion named ‘ANI’ guides you through the functions of the heart. You can zoom, rotate and scale a high-resolution heart hologram floating in front of you while experiencing the heartbeat in real-time through the different conditions of myocardial infarction, arterial hypertension and atrial fibrillation enrich this immersive experience. |
| TIME Immersive | TIME Immersive brings TIME stories to life before your eyes using the power of AR and VR. From exploring the surface of the moon to the depths of the Amazon rainforest, TIME Immersive extends TIME journalism into your smart device with groundbreaking interactive visual storytelling. |
360° Video Collection
| After the Fallout | This 360-degree experience pushes past traditional documentary tropes to evoke the reality and emotional gravity of life in Fukushima, ten years after the 2011 nuclear disaster. After the Fallout is an immersive mosaic that takes us through surreal environments in the exclusion zone, relives the struggle of the heroes who worked to prevent the meltdown, and explores the lives of families as they navigate a new world which they have had to adapt to. |
| The Curious Life of Ben Mont | While preparing for a winter formal at Northwood, a senior living center in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Bill Mont, an 89-year-old self-made entrepreneur, reminisces about his life, including his most recent venture – sending people’s ashes to the moon. As he ruminates on love and loss, as well as his entrepreneurial projects and acquisitions, in a 9 minute 360 virtual cinema film, we experience what it’s like to have fun while aging! |
| Notre-Dame de Paris: A Unique Journey Back in Time | On April 15, 2019, the world witnessed as Notre-Dame Cathedral was nearly destroyed in a devastating fire. As the tragedy unfolded, people began sharing memories of the cathedral with photos and videos reliving those moments. Ubisoft has been collaborating with historians for years, meticulously collecting data and testimonials to build a VR tour of Notre-Dame so people can get back to the cathedral and discover point-of-views that were inaccessible to the public, or elements of architecture that were destroyed by the fire, including the famous spire. |
| Out of Syria, Back into School | Around 500,000 Syrian refugee children live in Lebanon - forced to flee the crisis in their homeland, and to leave their school behind. This 360-degree, immersive video introduces you to the real-life stories of Mustafa and Sarah. They both fled the fighting with their families. They left their homelands and their schools behind. Now they live in Lebanon, but while Sarah is back in school with the help of UK aid, Mustafa must help support his family. |
| North Pole Virtual Reality - Poseidon Expeditions cruise | Join the crew of the icebreaker ship “50 Years of Victory” to the geographic North pole as if you were there. View the world’s largest icebreaker crashing through the ice from the helicopter and on deck. Watch as the crew creates the traditional polar circle - a circle around the North Pole, and fulfill their dreams. |
| Explore Cave Paintings | The paintings of our ancestors have been preserved in caves all over the world; the oldest we’ve found were made up to 40,000 years ago. What do these images tell us about the ancient human mind and the lives of their creators? In this special 360° TED-Ed animation, explore an ancient cave and its surrounding as Iseult Gillespie shares a brief history of cave paintings. |
Spotlighted Projects
Browse Previous Projects that have been completed in the Expreince Lab, or using the Expreince Lab equipment.
| INFO 2670 AR Prototype |
Adobe Aero Using Adobe Aero students in INFO 2670 were tasked with developing an AR prototype. Each group had a specific task that ranged from an art exhibit to an instructional guide. After concept development and creation of the AR prototype, the groups had the ability to share the prototype. |
| INFO 3620 AR App |
Unity & AR Foundation re: xr is an AR application that explores new media within traditional print magazines. Using Unity and the AR Foundations, it takes a typical spread featuring an image and overlays additional information in an aesthetically pleasing manner. In the case of the first publication topic, Calgary’s economy is represented by a digital model of the Core Shopping Centre. This model then contains the additional data obtained from the Calgary Economic Development Board. |
| GEOG 2111 VR Collection Experience |
Students were asked to identify glacial and fluvial geomorphological features from various predetermined sites using Google Earth VR. This allowed students to contextualize these features as well as visit hard to reach field sites. |
| INBU 3302 VR App |
Students created their own 360 virtual tours for Columbian micro businesses to help promote their products to international clients with the help of Google Tours VR. |
| FILM 3370 VR Collection Experience |
Students were asked to immerse themselves in a series of VR experiences including Coral Compass, Deep Blue, and Signs, and provide a reflection on how these experiences work with various themes in their course. |
| DeciphAR AR App |
Unity & Vuforia DeciphAR uses Augmented Reality (AR) to provide audio and visual information about the Blackfoot signage (translated by Elder Leo Fox from Kainai) in the Riddell Library and Learning Centre (RLLC) at Mount Royal University. The audio information includes the pronunciations of the Blackfoot phrases present on the signs. Also, each Infocard contains an explanation of the translation. Users can scan the signs in the Library to access these Infocards and test their skills with a quiz. |
Contacts
If you have any questions, would like to check out the equipment/software, or just come and try out more technology visit the VR Lab during open hours.