Virtual reality (VR) in lectures

Experience the spread of a fire individually in VR – immersive building physics and other examples

2019/02/28

With the “VR4Teach” project, the Institute of Numerical Methods and Informatics in Civil Engineering and the Institute of Construction and Building Materials have realized a cost-effective option that brings virtual reality to students in the lecture hall. In a direct test in the lecture, the spread of fire and smoke development in a one-room apartment could be experienced immersively by students.

Testing VR4Teach in a lecture

In order to develop new possibilities for e-learning and improve the range of courses offered, TU Darmstadt's Department 13 financed the Institute of Numerical Methods and Informatics in Civil Engineering and the Institute of Construction and Building Materials with a QSL-project in order to realize Virtual Reality for students in a lecture on the basis of the mobile phones, tablets and computers (“Bring your own device”) they brought along. For this purpose, both institutes developed the concept “VR4Teach”, which is a VR platform that enables students to dive into a digital lecture hall together with their own Internet-capable devices. Teachers can guide, mark and animate through the model shown. The students can follow the events immersively in virtual reality via laptops and tablets in a 3D view or via their own smartphone in a cardboard. During the test, a lecture on the subject of fire regarding building physics, students were able to try this out live for the first time and experience the example of fire propagation and smoke development, so that individual movement in virtual space is possible and relevant facts can be viewed individually. The aim is to improve the understanding of complex facts through interpretation-free individual visualisations and to fundamentally increase the learning success.

Pictures: WIB, IIB
Pictures: WIB, IIB