Laparoscopic VR

This project is a virtual reality prototype created to help surgical trainees acquire a better understanding of how laparoscopic procedures interact between the 3D space of the interior of a patient’s body and the 2D display of a laparoscope.

Two components have been prototyped so far:

    • An interactive scene where the user can take control of surgical instruments in front of them and practice grasping objects, using either the 2D laparoscopic or 3D realistic views available to them.
    • A non-interactive animated demo of an ideal suturing technique of a mock blood vessel.  This scene also focuses on allowing the user to view the procedure from different angles in both VR and on the laparoscope.

These two prototype components are currently being unified into a central application for practicing both laparoscopic motor skills and viewing laparoscopic surgical procedures in VR.

Software Used: Maya, Houdini, Unreal, SteamVR

Virtual Bethel

In 2016, Bethel AME Church, the oldest African American church of Indianapolis, sold their historic building, located in downtown Indy. However, before they sold it, they arranged for a digital archive of the space to be created.

Environment asset generation was essentially finished by the time I joined the project. My role then was to fully realize the environment as a living archive of the history of the church in a VR space. My primary contributions were:

    • Iterative design and development of the archive’s content display systems in VR
    • Technical art direction (fixing lighting, asset adjustment, real-time engine implementation)
    • VR user experience testing with non-typical VR user bases, on top of overall VR system development
    • Translation of desktop VR assets into a mobile VR application

Software Used: Maya, Photoshop, Unreal, SteamVR, Google Cardboard