Cross-Compatibility and Marketplaces

A very important consideration before purchasing any VR equipment is what experiences will be available on them. The Oculus and HTC Marketplaces have different titles. While there is some overlap, the physical hardware and sensors are different enough so that titles such as Medium from Oculus are unplayable on the HTC Vive. There are some titles available across both platforms. Google has led the way in this area with titles such as Tilt Brush and Earth.

Additionally, there will doubtless be libraries wishing to create their own content. This can vary from very simple to highly sophisticated. Our library has experimented with bringing in 360-degree footage. While this is fairly straightforward, it requires obtaining a viewer that will work with the goggles. Recent versions of the Chrome and Firefox browsers offer limited support for viewing VR content such as that available on YouTube using the WebVR standard (webvr.info). These are incomplete solutions at present, since there is a severe disruption to the user in leaving the Steam or Oculus environment to go to a browser that might or might not have the correct drivers for the equipment being used.

If libraries really want to get into content creation in VR, the Unity environment (unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/s/virtual-reality) and the Unreal Engine (unrealengine.com/en-US/vr) are worth looking at. Both are available for free with some limitations.

Early Converts

The first faculty and students who made use of our environment were from the art department. Experiences such Google’s Tilt Brush (tiltbrush.com) and Oculus’ Medium (oculus.com/medium) were immediate big hits. We also found younger students who were raised with digital gaming were comfortable with the 3D environment and tools long before their teachers were. Medium was especially satisfying, as it is a sculpting program that allows the user to export their sculpture and print it out with any 3D printer.

An unexpected group that quickly allied with us was the math department, which used Tilt Brush to import graphs which needed 3D to illustrate. Two professors in that department went on to create a VR calculus program available on the Google Play store (play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sfasu.cardboard.calculus&hl=en).

Additionally, the education department quickly realized the value of VR in teacher training with virtual field trip experiences. Interior design students used VR for visualizing their models created in Revit (enscape3d.com).

Usage and Future Plans

It took a couple of semesters of constant interaction with faculty and students, as well as some publicity at the local level, but we are now experiencing constant use. Several campus programs have been spawned that encourage faculty to create VR experiences and integrate VR into their classes. In the future, we hope to integrate multi-color printing as well as a laser cutter, making for a more-rounded makerspace experience. Also looming is the emergence of augmented reality (AR), which has received a lot of attention recently with both Apple (developer.apple.com/arkit) and Microsoft (microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-mixed-reality) making strong commitments to the technology.

The term “mixed reality” is also making a lot of headlines, though currently it is more of a marketing term than a standard (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_reality). No doubt these technologies will make an appearance in the next few years. Of far greater excitement for day-to-day users is the possibility of losing all of the connecting cables. These can severely hamper the ability of users to fully immerse in the experience since they are always aware of being tethered. The newly announced Oculus Go (oculus.com/go) is likely to be a game-changer, although issues such as controllability, heat dissipation, availability of experiences, and price will all have to be considered.

One area that needs addressing is the use of VR in multi-person environments. Current headsets are designed for one person to use on a regular basis. A headset that is easy to clean and very rugged would be most welcome in the library. As we proceed forward, we will need to decide whether to continue the focus on VR or move on to emerging technologies. Issues of staffing and space management are currently paramount. We are still learning, and the landscape is changing constantly. This is perhaps the best part of dealing with emerging technologies: The skills that come from the constant change that forces a staff to learn and adapt quickly are excellent ones to possess in our current library environment.