Working in immersive 3D VR environments can lead to a significant improvement in conceptual understanding when working with massive and spatially varying data, and in particular when one does not actually know the answer a priori (Kreylos et al., 2006; Jadamec et al., 2018).
We become so accustomed to our physical surroundings, that as we grow older it is hard to conceptualize something we have never seen.
However, this is exactly what we are faced with in research and what students are faced with in learning, in particular when working with complex shapes,
massive data fields, and nonlinear model behavior.
The Geodynamics Research and Visualization Lab here at UB located in Cooke Hall on UB's North Campus and is comprised of set of 3DTVs, 3D monitors, and HTC Vives for interactive exploration of scientific data and models run here at UB on the geosolver cluster also hosted by the Geodynamics Research and Visualization group.
View is from inside the earth looking out. 3D visualization of earthquake hypocentral locations shows that earthquakes are unevenly distributed throughout the earth and concentrated at tectonic plate boundaries, an observational constraint that played a role in defining plate tectonics in the mid 1960's. Visualization by Jerico Revote, Margarete Jadamec, and Louis Moresi at the 3DALIVE visualization facility at Monash University with the ShowEarthModel software (Kreylos et al., 2006; Jadamec et al., 2018).
Jadamec et al. (2018)