Virtual Reality (VR) is a great piece of kit that’s being used in a range of different interesting ways, not just for training in the medical sector, but also investment, property development, and even training astronauts.
Virtual Reality headsets and devices are available in a wide variety of different shapes and sizes, often depending on price, and corresponding quality. Consumer-grade kit is available using your smartphone at a fairly cheap and accessible price point, but for businesses and specific training methods, they’re often developed with high-end equipment and for a singular purpose.
Interested in finding more about Virtual Reality and its usage in training and industry? Here are a few key points on how Virtual Reality is helping to revolutionise both workplace training, and also investment.
Virtual Reality and medical training
Justin Barad, Co-Founder and CEO of Osso VR, a company that focuses on providing VR surgical training and assessment, states on the company site that medical surgeons face a lot more training that what is normally required, and that an advanced level of immersive training should be more of a standard to prevent adverse events from other ineffective training purposes. There are also other companies focusing on bringing this tech forward in the medical field, such as Oxford Medical Simulation, who have partnerships with colleges and universities in the UK.
By leveraging this technology and creating bespoke, authentic and detailed software to go along with it, practicing surgeons and trainees alike can get an authentic training and assessment experience like no other – and it seems to be working a treat. The Washington Post reported that in a study done by the University of California, training with Osso VR and its software proved to be 230% more efficient and effective than the normal methods.
The visual imagery is of course crucial, but being able to interact with the virtual environment without breaking the illusion is also extremely important, and particularly in a medical environment, fluidity of motion is a top priority. That’s why the top range VR units have hand controllers that allow users to move their hands and wrists freely in a 1:1 range of motion, and with haptic feedback to make the experience feel more tangible and real. This technology will only continue to improve in the future, making the immersion and quality of training from these products even better as time goes on, and it will also become increasingly adopted. Another possibility, not just in the medical world but in other practices and businesses, is that Augmented Reality will become more engrained in everyday practices, overlaying features into the real world rather than completely immersing the employee/user.
Other cutting edge uses of VR
The medical sector isn’t the only one utilising virtual reality technology in order to become efficient, and prepared for the future. In the property investment industry, for example, virtual reality technology has become an invaluable part of the investment process for those looking forward into the future of an area, and at a development before it has been completed. RWinvest, a property investment company with ongoing in-progress developments throughout the North West of the UK, utilise VR tech in order to provide investors with VR viewings of their prospective properties, giving them a feel of what they might look like before they’ve been fully completed and tenanted. This is an important step in the property landscape, particularly when off-plan investment (investment where the build is still in construction phases) is proving popular among buyers. Things like virtual events are also starting to become more common and it won’t be surprising if VR soon plays a part in them.
Another fascinating use of virtual reality, similarly for training purposes, is in NASA astronauts. While those preparing to go up into space might prepare for their missions in a variety of different ways, such as practising aboard dummy ships or experiencing gravity shifts to experience antigravity in space, NASA themselves also have a proprietary VR unit that allows trainees to experience a virtual spacewalk.
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