Simulation Archives - Tech Trends

Cutting Edge VR

Alice — Tue, 13 Nov 2018 01:52:42 +0000

Fundamental VR is partnering with the Mayo Clinic to democratize the next generation of haptic surgical training simulation tools.

Globally, 5 Billion people don’t have access to safe surgery due to lack of trained professionals. In the U.S. alone, over $15 billion a year is spent on medical training, but much of that is wasted in antiquated, expensive, and non-repeatable methods which offer students little chance of hands-on practice.

The truth is that the way surgeons are trained has changed very little over the past 150 years, and much of hands-on practice still relies on using cadavers, which cost $13,000 or more and can only be used to train between 4-6 students. Reusable, synthetic cadaver cost in excess of $40,000.

5 Billion people don’t have access to safe surgery
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All this adds up to the fact that currently less than 0.5% of the world’s surgeons have access to simulations. Something that FundamentalVR is on a mission to change by democratizing surgical training through low-cost, safe and immersive experiences.

The way surgeons are trained has changed very little over the past 150 years, and much of hands-on practice still relies on using cadavers
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Users can feel the movement and interaction of tissue, muscle and bone as they would in an actual procedure
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Headquartered in London with offices in Boston, the company provides enterprise training solutions to medical device and pharmaceutical companies as well as curriculum-based immersive training experiences to medical institutions, hospitals and learning centers. So far it has raised over $2.6M in funding, capitalizing on the fact that the global MedEd is projected to reach $38BN by 2024.

Until recently, affordable virtual reality solutions in this area had been limited to game-like experiences without the touch sensation that is so critical in surgical procedures, while current VR haptic solutions that use specialist equipment cost over $100K to purchase and thousands more to maintain, as they require specialist “Sim-Tech” staff and a dedicated space.

The FundamentalVR platform on the other hand, offers subscription licenses starting $350, and the software works in conjunction with any modern PC or laptop, a standard VR headset and two haptic arm devices that can be easily purchased online to conduct procedures.

Users can feel the movement and interaction of tissue, muscle and bone as they would in an actual procedure within a sub millimeter of accuracy of resistance, something that I experienced first-hand when “performing” a procedure at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai earlier this year.

Less than 0.5% of the world’s surgeons have access to simulations
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Until recently, affordable virtual reality solutions in this area had been limited to game-like experiences without the touch sensation that is so critical in surgical procedures
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Its proprietary Surgical Haptic Intelligence Engine (SHIE) draws upon an extensive library of tools and tissue variants that mimic real life sensations which were carefully calibrated by a leading team of surgeons. Over two years of development, more than 500 surgeons have tested the system, which constantly adapted around the feedback. Just as pilots train for bird strikes or engine failure, surgeons are confronted with varying scenarios ranging from abnormal anatomy to rare complications that can happen during live procedures, such as unexpected bleeding.

The healthcare sector has been among the earliest adopters of immersive technology, as the benefits – most evident in the ability to train students and allow professionals to hone their skills in a safe and realistic environment – were clearly quantifiable. Which is why the interest they’re attracting from major players in the industry is not really surprising. FundamentalVR have just announced a three-year strategic alliance with the Mayo Clinic, one of the leading academic medical centers in the U.S. This includes a joint development agreement for its Surgical VR Simulator, Fundamental Surgery.

Healthcare has been among the earliest adopters of immersive technology
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The proof of the pudding lies in whether the use of VR simulations will eventually improve patient outcomes
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But this will go further than allowing current trainee and qualified surgeons to experience surgical procedures and will include both companies sharing clinical and technical expertise to develop new immersive training products. The objective is to create new simulation content as well as assessment criteria based on the Mayo Clinic’s substantial body of research and in partnership with its surgeons, clinical practitioners, and data scientists.

This agreement will see the two parties collaborating on a range of simulations with an initial focus on the General Surgery area. They will then move into growth areas including robotic and patient specific simulation derived from DiCom (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) data and 3D modeling.

The objective is to create new simulation content as well as assessment criteria based on the Mayo Clinic’s substantial body of research
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The proof of the pudding, however, lies in whether the use of VR simulations will eventually improve patient outcomes, something that Richard Vincent, FundamentalVR’s CEO believes is possible.

“Our haptic + immersive VR platform has already proven to offer a new way to allow skills development, and we share the belief that the comparative data insight and measurement will have a profoundly positive impact on the wellbeing of people around the world,“ he says.

The platform’s initial training packages are focused on Orthopedic Surgical disciplines including Spinal Pedicle Screw Placement, Posterior Hip Replacement and Total Knee Arthroplasty. Further orthopedic procedures will be added during Q4 2018 with other disciplines, including general surgery and cardiovascular slated for 2019.

This article appeared originally on VRScout

FundamentalVR Partners With Mayo Clinic To Develop Haptic VR Surgery Simulations via @alicebonasio https://t.co/yIIs1cD1IK pic.twitter.com/v07p5OPnPh

— VRScout (@VRScout) November 2, 2018

Want to leverage Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality to take your brand to the next level? Tech Trends offers comprehensive Immersive Technologies Consultancy to help you get there.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Cutting Edge VR appeared first on Tech Trends.

Changing the Way Surgeons Operate with Mixed Reality

Alice — Wed, 21 Jun 2017 07:35:34 +0000

Healthcare is one of the areas with most potential for dramatic improvement with the implementation of Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality Technologies

The virtual world is already having a real impact in people's lives and health
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As countries around the world struggle to find health care provision models that balance the needs of aging populations with shrinking budgets—and as startups jostle to get into operating rooms—the virtual world is already being used to impact the health care of real people.

“I could be in Cleveland and teach a group of students in, say, London with all of us able to see one another and the holograms simultaneously,” says Professor Mark Griswold, Case Western Reserve’s faculty leader for the university’s efforts with Microsoft’s HoloLens, the $3,000 developer-edition-only augmented reality glasses. “The professor can see how students are interacting with the hologram in real time, and respond immediately with additional explanations or encouragement as needed.”

Devices like the HoloLens and consumer VR helmets like Samsung’s Gear VR and Facebook’s Oculus have received the most attention as vehicles for escape, but their real-world applications are growing fastest in the workplace. IDC, which pegs current industry revenues at around $5.6 billion, says much of the growth in shipments of VR and AR headsets over the next five years will come from industrial uses (80% a year), versus consumer uses (50%), like video games, films, porn, and other entertainment. Among current non-health care HoloLens customers, for instance, are companies like Lowe’s, Volvo, and ThyssenKrupp, whose technicians use the glasses to operate on ailing elevators.

Healthcare revenues for VR and AR technologies reached nearly a billion dollars in 2016
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In health care, revenues for VR and AR technologies reached nearly a billion dollars in 2016, according to Kalorama Research. Some estimate that by 2025, that number could reach over $5 billion, thanks to uses in areas like telemedicine, pain relief, robotic surgery, and, increasingly, medical simulations.

VR and AR are already being used in areas like pain relief, robotic surgery and telemedicine
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Medical instructors say a VR helmet, coupled with haptic-feedback “syringes,” can help a surgeon practice a complex operation in detail before carrying it out—or help a doctor with limited access to education locally get better medical training, improving patient experience and outcomes. A pair of augmented reality goggles can put an animated “patient” in front of students, making the expensive dummies obsolete altogether. And as medical operations become more sophisticated and high-tech, computer glasses could help get practitioners up to speed faster.

The United States is facing a shortfall of 100,000 physicians by 2030
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Health care experts have proposed new technologies like these as one of various solutions to what some have called a crisis in medicine: The United States could be facing a shortfall of between 48,000 and 100,000 physicians by 2030, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. Since it takes between five and 10 years on average to train a new physician, medical industry experts say the U.S. urgently needs more people to enter that training pipeline now, particularly in highly specialized fields: The greatest shortfall, on a percentage basis, will be in the demand for surgeons, especially those who treat cancer and other diseases more common to older people.

Using Mixed Reality simulations to train surgeons could alleviate the shortfall and bring in cost savings
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Alleviating that shortfall and upgrading decades-old simulations with mixed reality could also ferry in cost savings that can’t come soon enough. In the U.S., the cost of health care continues to surge, far beyond the price of drugs: Open-heart surgery is 70% more than the next highest country; an appendectomy over two times more. And the price for a day in the hospital is about five times more in the U.S. than other developed countries.

Better Learning Through Virtuality?

For years, surgeons have relied on 3D modeling on computers to plan complex procedures down to the millimeter, so there are as few surprises as possible. The technology proved valuable for the team that separated conjoined twins Erika and Eva Sandoval at Stanford’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto in 2013. In that case, surgeons donned 3D glasses to study digital renderings of the twins’ organs, allowing them to perform a heart valve replacement using an incision less than half the normal size. More recently, 3D modeling has merged with VR at Stanford Health Care, where an app called True 3D technology, developed with Mountain View-based company EchoPixel, promises to increase a surgeon’s ability to visualize and plan complex procedures beforehand

“Our biggest problem is cutting into an artery or vein that we did not expect,” says Eric Wickstrom, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the medical school at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, who co-authored a 2013 study on the use of 3D models in surgery.

A clinical study published last year in the Journal of Neurosurgery looked at how surgeons rehearsed their operations using a VR-based brain modeling platform developed by the company Surgical Theater. The tool, in use at New York University, University Hospitals in Cleveland and Mount Sinai among others, appeared to help surgeons reduce the time it took to repair aneurysms, suggesting it also made the surgeries safer.

15 minutes with the HoloLens could save dozens of hours in the lab
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Making Virtual Bodies Feel Real And Real Bodies More Virtual

The next step in the equation will be to accurately reproduce not only the look but the feel of any surgical procedure. HoloLens partner FundamentalVR is already working on the addition of haptic feedback to surgery simulations, says Richard Vincent, the company’s founder. The London-based startup is developing a tool called FeelRealVR, which it describes as a “flight simulator” for surgery. In its current version, students use a stylus in place of a syringe, which provides realistic levels of pressure and resistance in relation to a hologram of a patient’s open knee joint, for instance.

Vincent argues that tools like this can make for better learners. The enhanced cognitive involvement that comes from not only seeing, but interacting with the holograms triggers active “Involved Learning,” he says, a recognized teaching methodology in which students have been found to retain much more of the subject matter than with traditional approaches.

Surgeons rely on 3D modeling on computers to plan complex procedures down to the millimeter, so there are as few surprises as possible
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AR is also augmenting instruction during real-life surgeries
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AR is also augmenting instruction during real-life surgeries. Hands-on, face-to-face lessons during real-life operations are in short supply, often limited to the limited number of students who can fit inside an operating theater. Surgeons who can teach are in such high demand, meanwhile, that experiential learning can be increasingly infrequent at medical schools, taught only once to a small group.

“Surgery is very visual. You can read it in a book if you want but it’s not the same as watching it live,” says Dr. Nadine Hachach-Haram, a NHS registrar in plastic surgery at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. “Yet it’s physically difficult to get many medical students in the operating room at any time.”

Hachach-Haram is cofounder of a company called Proximie that developed a way to use augmented reality to let a distant surgeon virtually place his or her “hands” or instruments onto a patient’s body. The idea is to let experienced practitioners guide operating teams on where each incision should be made and how to proceed. After being selected by the U.K. Lebanon Tech Hub Accelerator, Proximie is now rolling out a training pilot at The Royal Free Hospital, allowing 150 of its students to log in remotely to watch surgery through the application.

Mixed reality is also improving operating rooms in less obvious ways. ByDesign, a HoloLens app, helps surgeons, nurses, and technicians save precious time in configuring the setup of operating theaters. Whenever there’s a rotation, operating rooms need to be carefully reconfigured to meet each team’s very specific requirements, since even minute errors in that context can have dangerous consequences for both patients and practitioners.

Two surgeons hundreds of miles apart can both stand in different rooms looking at accurate holographic renditions of the same equipment
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Traditionally that means multiple people moving around heavy, delicate, and expensive equipment to test various configurations. In an environment where most facilities already operate near capacity, this resource-intensive process translates into higher costs and slower delivery of care, says Andy Pierce, president of Global Endoscopy at Stryker.

By donning an AR headset, practitioners can visualize objects in full-scale 3D, with the flexibility of being able to easily move virtual objects. Two surgeons hundreds of miles apart can both stand in different rooms looking at accurate holographic renditions of the same equipment, moving them around until they’re satisfied the optimum setup has been reached. This can then be saved and relayed to those in charge of setting up the operating rooms themselves.

Upgrading The Cadaver

A review of augmented reality in medical training published last year in the journal Surgical Endoscopy couldn’t say whether the technology would contribute to patient safety. But author Esther Barsom, a researcher in the department of surgery at the University of Amsterdam, noted that AR is “preeminently suitable” for helping improve the training of situational awareness during operations, a facet that is “lacking in medical curricula.” And, she wrote, “as training methods become more engaging and reliable, learning curves may be expected to become steeper and patients will ultimately benefit.”

Prof. Wickstrom of Thomas Jefferson University suggests that virtual simulations could also widen the recruiting pipeline: By making medical education more interactive and engaging, the medical field could become more accessible and attractive to those who previously might have been put off by traditional medical learning.

As training methods become more engaging and reliable, learning curves may be expected to become steeper and patients will ultimately benefit
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The time-honored way of teaching anatomy, for instance, is to have students spend months dissecting cadavers. But these procedures—not unlike the realistic mannequins at SimLearn—can cost tens of thousands of dollars. And cadavers can only be used by a limited number of students, and, naturally, only once.

Under Prof. Griswold at Case Western Reserve, anatomy students use the HoloLens to interact with virtual patients and organs, allowing them to pull back the various layers of the human body, visualize the muscles on top of the skeleton, and understand exactly where things are located. AR means that medical students are not confined to learning the terrain of a single body, but can see accurate visualizations of particular conditions such as cancers, heart disease, or spinal injuries.

“In the fall we did a pilot test of HoloLens with medical students who already had studied the cardiothoracic region for several weeks in the cadaver lab,”Griswold says. “After one session viewing the same area of the body wearing the devices, 85% said they had learned something new.”

Just 15 minutes with the HoloLens could have saved them dozens of hours in the lab, students who participated in the pilot told Pamela Davis, dean of the school of medicine. Case Western is now in the process of developing a broader holographic anatomy curriculum. “The quicker our students learn facts like these, the more time they have to think with them,” Davis said at last year’s Microsoft’s Build conference. “We are teaching them to think like a doctor.”

Originally published on the Fast Company website

The unreal, bleeding-edge tech that’s helping doctors make the cut https://t.co/g1dV4I5BBp pic.twitter.com/707KhPVUXz

— Fast Company (@FastCompany) June 20, 2017

Tech Trends’ Virtual Reality Consultancy services offers support for companies looking to get a foothold in the growing Mixed Reality spectrum and enhance their brand strategy with these exciting new technologies.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Changing the Way Surgeons Operate with Mixed Reality appeared first on Tech Trends.

Being a Wizard at Virtual Reality University

Alice — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 14:43:30 +0000

Welcome to a world of wizardly wonder, where technology is indeed indistinguishable from magic. If you ever dreamed of going to Hogwarts, this course at Full Sail University might just be for you

I hold in my hands what looks and feels like a wand from a Harry Potter film. But this isn’t one of the cheap replicas you can buy in a souvenir shop. It was 3D-printed right here, in the high-tech workshop where I’m standing. And once I put on a HoloLens headset, it’s incredibly effective against the hordes of advancing dementors.

This blended approach is embraced by industry players like Microsoft
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The game—and the wand—were developed by Pat Starace, director of the digital fabrication course at Full Sail University in Orlando, Florida. Over a 20-year career, Starace has produced a huge range of models, special effects, and animations for motion pictures and television, including the iconic 1979 title sequence from 60 Minutes. At Full Sail, he teaches students the rapid prototyping techniques needed to convert 3-D drawings into objects like magic wands, while also working on his own projects (like an animatronic toucan and a 3D-printed prosthetic hand modeled after Iron Man’s glove).

The Dementor game switches between AR and virtual reality VR seamlessly within the same experience
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The Dementor game was built to explore switching between augmented (AR) and virtual reality (VR) within the same experience: Players can either blast Dementors rushing at them from all sides of their living room, or be transported to what looks like a room at Hogwarts. In the industry, this type of game is still considered blue-sky thinking—experiences tend to be segmented into AR or VR—but students vying for Full Sail’s Simulation and Visualization bachelor degree, launched in 2016, are encouraged to think big. Already, this blended approach is being embraced by industry players like Microsoft.

“We talk about VR and AR as their own separate industries, but they are in fact simply screens into a virtual world,” says Full Sail program director Rob Catto. “The difference is that the screens actually put you into that world. VR is about much more than just putting on a headset; it’s about all of your senses.”

As in Hogwarts wizards, training AR/VR wizards is a complicated business. Full Sail’s workshop is packed with 3D printers, laser cutters, and milling machines. Students learn everything from basic carpentry and spray-painting to how to make their own circuit boards. They study artificial intelligence, physics, data modeling, and human-computer interaction, and learn a diverse range of technical skills that includes using engines like Unity and Unreal, and coding in C Sharp and C++. The program is not for the faint of heart, and more suited to your average Hermione than your average Ron.

Early on, students at Full Sail University are given a project that requires them to use skills like laser-cutting and circuit-board construction
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Early on, students are given a project that requires them to use skills like laser-cutting and circuit-board construction. They then go on to assemble and program devices like one Catto shows me in the Full Sail lab. Called a Stewart Platform, it’s a miniature version of what most theme park rides sit on top of, except this one fits in the palm of my hand. It’s engrossing to watch the platform perform a wide range of dynamic movements—heaving, surging, swaying, rolling, hitching, and dropping—especially when those movements are synced to a character’s on-screen movements.

When Full Sail student Carolyn Smith was tasked with building a Stewart Platform, she too turned to J. K. Rowling for inspiration. Smith designed her own version of Quidditch—sort of like football, if football were played on flying broomsticks—complete with a Harry Potter figurine riding a broom. That got Smith thinking bigger: Why not make a broom you could actually ride while experiencing Quidditch in immersive VR?

When Full Sail student Carolyn Smith was tasked with building a Stewart Platform, she too turned to J. K. Rowling for inspiration
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Smith started by crafting a life-size Nimbus 2000—a high-end broom model featured in the Harry Potter books
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Smith started by crafting a life-size Nimbus 2000—a high-end broom model featured in the books—using tools and materials from the Full Sail lab. She also found resources online: Being a keen cosplayer meant Smith was familiar with a community that enjoyed building realistic props, and various tutors offered help and advice. (One of them even lent her his personal power chisel.) After a lot of hard graft—she stayed up until 2am spray-painting and hand-layering broom bristles —the model came together, and Smith turned her attention to making it “fly.”

“Two instructors helped me with wiring it and… doing thing like fitting in an accelerometer and connecting it to an Arduino computer,” Smith says. “Two buttons are placed just below the accelerometer [to accelerate and to grab the snitch, if you’re close enough], which also connect to the Arduino, making complex adjustments that link the movements of the platform to those of the character generated on the screen.”

A huge Harry Potter fan, Smith plans to visit Universal Studios Harry Potter ride to see how it compares to her efforts, and it’s not unlikely that she’ll stay in Orlando after graduation: The city has more than 100 companies working in the simulation sector, and the VR boom is continuing to gain momentum. But for now, Smith’s only regret is how the project deadline prevented her from researching all the proper Quidditch lore. “I wanted to try to make the game as accurate as possible,” she says, “but I ran out of time.” Looking at what she’s managed to build, I feel that Rowling herself might let a few inaccuracies slide.

This article originally appeared in Quartz

A Florida university is making Quidditch a (virtual) reality https://t.co/iLIFeskRUm

— Quartz (@qz) June 17, 2017

For companies looking to gain a competitive edge through technology, Tech Trends offers strategic Virtual Reality and Digital Transformation Consultancy services tailored to your brand.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Being a Wizard at Virtual Reality University appeared first on Tech Trends.

A VR Sandbox for Your Inner Child

Alice — Mon, 27 Feb 2017 10:32:50 +0000

This sandbox 2.0 VR installation promises to make test-driving a whole lot more fun.

The experience was created as a partnership between Audi Norway, MediaMonks and Oslo-based creative agency POL by combining a physical installation with virtual reality.

“For many of us, playing with cars in the sandpit is a distant memory. Let’s face it, the opportunity rarely presents itself once you pass a certain age,” says Tommy Jensen Marketing Manager of Audi Norway. “The Sandbox 2.0 is a state-of-the-art toy for kids and adults. It provides a platform to rekindle the joys of driving and demonstrate the assets of the Q5 and the quattro technology in a playful and accessible way.”

The Sandbox 2.0 is a state-of-the-art toy for kids and adults
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You’re invited to get into a purpose-built sandpit, where you can build a customised track. The real-life sand is then scanned with a depth-sensing camera, which renders it into virtual reality. The size of the jumps and the challenge of the course are all dictated by the sandy self-made chicanes.

Audi: Enter Sandbox TVC from MediaMonks on Vimeo.

The Making of Audi: Enter Sandbox from MediaMonks on Vimeo.

You’re invited to get into a purpose-built sandpit, where you can build a customised track
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In order to accurately capture every bump and curve, the sand is bombarded with short bursts of infrared light with over 200,000 measure points captured by the infrared camera. This data is then used to create a 3D model that informs the virtual environment. Once in the car, the driver experiences all the tangibility of a real-life drive, from feedback in the steering wheel, to the actual sounds of the vehicle.

“When you put on the headset you don’t just see the inside of a Audi Q5. This virtual world has real depth. You can look around and explore behind stuff. It’s really exciting to watch as people experience this for the first time,” says Tom Eriksen, Creative Director at MediaMonks. “To create a VR experience that is totally believable, it’s important that the driving environment also feels real. Not only the visual part but also the feel of the steering wheel and its feedback when you hit the sand.”

“Another factor in the immersion of VR, is audio. So we’ve used the engine sound from a real Audi Q5. Then our sound software renders a realistic and dynamic three-dimensional sound experience,” adds Johan Ansterus, VR Producer at MediaMonks.

Although the sandbox idea originated in Norway, it is specifically designed to enable easy transportation, and there are plans to take it around the world following the launch phase, so we might get to play in one at some point soon, we can’t wait!

Also nice to see a girl in the driving seat, VR or otherwise
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PS. We’re also loving the fact that the video shows a girl in the driving seat.

For companies looking to get into VR/AR/MR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance on how these technologies can enhance and support your brand strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post A VR Sandbox for Your Inner Child appeared first on Tech Trends.

Tech Trends Explores Orlando VR Scene and #OTRONICON

Alice — Sun, 15 Jan 2017 17:23:27 +0000

Disney World and co. might be what most of us associate with Orlando, but what you don’t often realize is how the technology pioneered by all those theme parks – together with the region’s strong military and space exploration tradition – have turned this friendly town into the “simulation capital of the world.”

There's more to Orlando than the theme parks, including a booming tech scene
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Given the VR renaissance we’re experiencing at the moment, that accolade just became a whole lot more interesting, which is why when Tech Trends was invited by the Orlando Economic Development Commission (OEDC) to check out the city’s booming tech scene we were intrigued enough to pack our bags and head over to sunny Florida (the fact it was snowing in the UK was just a bonus).

A lot of Orlando companies are pushing the envelope in VR and AR
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But while the weather predictably lived up to its promise, the tech scene actually surpassed out expectations. We met with a huge range of companies pushing the envelope in VR, gaming and simulation from all possible directions. We were hosted by giant multinational companies such as EA games (which has its second largest office in the city) and AMD – who are developing the next generation of Graphics Processors that will enable the consumer VR revolution to scale – as well as start-ups building giant 3D theme park rides, or using Augmented Reality to enhance online retail or education experiences. We met some awesome entrepreneurs and had a blast at a space-themed Nerd Nite There was certainly a lot more to the Orlando tech scene than we had first expected to find.

.@alicebonasio loved meeting u! so glad to share an education about #sex in #space? @nerdniteorlando #ThisIsOrlando pic.twitter.com/GLB38IQ1ax

— CarlosCarbonell (@CarlosCarbonell) January 13, 2017

Orlando is also leveraging its gaming and simulation talent pool and ecosystem to carve out a niche for itself as one of the major centers for education in those emerging areas. Simulation technology is already being applied across the board in medical research, education and rehabilitation, as we’ve had the chance to see when visiting the Veteran’s Hospital and Anatomy school at UCF’s “Medical City.” But there are also a number of fast-growing universities and colleges such as Full Sail, Orange Technical College and UCF Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA) which now have dedicated courses and impressive facilities to teach the skillsets required to develop Virtual Reality technology.

The Otronicon expo has grown steadily for the past decade
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One of the highlights of our visit, which showcased all this diversity under one roof was Otronicon an interactive technology expo that aims to get people excited about STEM by experiencing it hands-on. The family-friendly event started over a decade ago and grew steadily to the point where the 2017 edition boasted exhibitors such as Lockheed Martin, NASA, Microsoft and Disney alongside small start-ups using AR and VR technologies in health and education as well as the gaming and entertainment fields.

From surgeon robots to zombie boxing, military simulations to game jams, Orlando showed us a good time
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From surgeon robots to zombie boxing, military simulations to game jams, we had a fun time exploring some of the most exciting innovations that Orlando has to offer, and you can get a flavour of what we’ve been up to in the gallery below.

Do watch this space for more deep dives into the trends, companies and innovations emerging from the vibrant Orlando ecosystem, but in the meantime we will be doing some swimming with Manatees before eagerly returning to British January weather.

Orlando is leveraging its talent pool to become a VR education hub
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For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance and support on how best to incorporate these into your brand strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Tech Trends Explores Orlando VR Scene and #OTRONICON appeared first on Tech Trends.