Virtual virtual reality

This coming January our lab will be moving to a beautiful new facility, at the location of the former Forbes building at Fifth Avenue and 12th Street. For me, one of the exciting things about this move is the fact that it will include a state of the art Virtual Reality lab.

The interiors are being constructed now, which as you can imagine is a massive undertaking. Every few weeks my colleagues and I go to the building, don hardhats and protective glasses, and get a tour of the facilities. It’s still bare cement floors and walls, exposed ductwork and wiring, and tape to mark where offices will be built.

Fortunately the University was kind enough to share with us the 3D CAD files containing detailed plans of the forthcoming interior. My brilliant student Sebastian Herscher has turned those files into a VR walkthrough.

Today, in our current VR lab, I donned a VIVE headset and took a tour through our future, still unbuilt, VR lab. It was all very vivid and wonderful.

You might say I had an experience of virtual virtual reality. There is something delightfully meta about that.

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