Kenton Brice, the digital resource librarian at the Donald E. Pray Law Library, moves his hands while wearing a virtual reality headset Oct. 25. Using the headsets, students will be able to re-explore crime scenes
Virtual reality is changing criminal studies at the OU College of Law. Two white, custom-built virtual reality rigs sit together in the law library, where users can explore models and artifacts in a 3D space.
The rigs include Oculus Rift headsets with Leap Motion controllers, which model the user’s hands digitally, with built-in seating and a 3D mouse, accompanied with a large monitor to mirror what the user is seeing and doing — all powered by a custom-built Falcon Northwest computer.
The rigs are connected to six others across campus, digital resource librarian Kenton Brice said.
“We’re all plugged into the same system and it’s called OVAL (Oklahoma Virtual Academic Labs). Ours is basically just the newest one and, in my opinion, the nicest one out there,” he said.
Although the rigs were introduced to the library more than a month ago, he said, law students are not able to apply it to their studies yet. Brice said the professors, attorneys and students who have used it have only explored demonstrations so far.
“We’re still in the heavily experimental phase of this project,” he said. “Right now, the way it’s set up, students don’t have free, full-blown access to this. Right now what we’re doing is guided workshops, and that’s hit or miss because this is so new.”
Educationally, virtual reality is used in a variety of ways around campus. Anthropology, architecture and engineering each use it for their own purposes, he said.
As Brice places the headset over his eyes and ears, he waves his hands and points his fingers in front of him, using them to select models to explore. In virtual reality, Brice is flying around a replica of the Law Library, then changes to another model where he can view a skull, examining it from every angle.
,
Source: Haptic