VRm is a prototype virtual reality tool designed to help medical professionals study human anatomy. The project was a collaboration between myself and Craig Foster, a professor in the RIT Medical Illustration department. Each of us taught a studio course for our respective majors, and we combined our classes into one interdisciplinary development team. Both groups of students met together throughout the semester to work on a shared project, with Craig and me acting as co-project managers, lead designers, producers, product researchers, and art asset implementation experts.

Together, our team developed an anatomically accurate 3D model of a human arm and built a software prototype to serve as a proof of concept. Every aspect of this project was experimental—from the logistics of merging two classes across disciplines to the process of designing the tool itself.

A central focus of this initiative was cross-disciplinary collaboration: students from different majors brought diverse skill sets to the table, enabling the creation of a much more complex and polished product than would have been possible otherwise.

The Medical Illustration students led the effort on anatomical asset creation, while my students were primarily responsible for programming, UI/UX design, and environment asset creation. The project was run over two semesters, with completely different student cohorts each term.

The VRm prototype enables users to:

• Write in 3D space and on a virtual whiteboard

• Rotate and pose the arm model

• Select individual muscles and joints

• Activate pop-ups to display information for selected anatomical parts

• Toggle muscle visibility to see only the bones

• Interact with nearly every object in the scene

• Move an interactive light source to examine anatomy under different lighting conditions

My work on VRm has been disseminated and peer reviewed through various conferences and festivals; details are listed on the Presentations/Publications page of this site.

VRm