The Convergence Effect: Real and Virtual Encounters in Augmented Reality Art

Extended-Reality Technologies: An Overview of Emerging Applications in Medical Education and Clinical Care.

Primary school students often find it difficult to differentiate two dimensional and three-dimensional geometric shapes. Taking advantage of the ability of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) to visualize 3D objects, we evaluate the potential of VR and AR technologies for teaching the lesson of geometric solids to primary school children. To the best of our knowledge there are no previous cases in the literature describing a comparative evaluation of VR and AR technologies in education, and more specifically in the field of mathematics for primary school children. An experimental evaluation was staged to test the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 1: VR and AR applications make the teaching of mathematics more interactive and interesting and they also contribute to a more efficient learning and understanding of mathematical concepts. Hypothesis 2: The use of VR applications is more effective when compared to AR applications for mathematics teaching activities. For the needs of the experimental evaluation, we designed a lesson plan comprised of three activities: Classification of shapes into solid or plane shapes, identification of solid shapes appearing in a typical city environment, and classification of solid shapes. The lesson plan was implemented based on the traditional method that utilizes printed material, three related VR and three AR applications. The developed VR and AR applications for the current research do not require specialized equipment. For the AR applications, the users only need to use their mobile device or tablet and for VR applications they only need to use a mobile phone and low-cost virtual reality glasses. As part of the study 30 fourth, fifth and sixth class primary school students were divided equally into the control group who used the traditional teaching method, and the AR and VR groups who used AR and VR applications respectively. Participants were provided with questionnaires before (pre-test) and after the test (post-test) to measure factors such as user attention, presence, enjoyment, science knowledge, auditory knowledge, and visual knowledge. According to the results, new technologies in education in the form of virtual and augmented reality improve interactivity and student interest in mathematics education, contributing to more efficient learning and understanding of mathematical concepts when compared to traditional teaching methods. No significant difference was observed between virtual and augmented reality technologies with regards to the efficiency of the methods that contribute to the learning of mathematics, suggesting that both virtual and augmented reality display similar potential for educational activities in Mathematics. Based on statistical evidence Hypothesis 1 was accepted and Hypothesis 2 was rejected. The current research is one of the first attempts ever to compare VR and AR technologies for Mathematics teaching activities in primary school. The findings of our research can provide valuable feedback to educators and developers who plan to use or develop VR or AR technologies for educational activities. Given that these days VR and AR applications, like the ones used in the experimental evaluation, do not require highly specialized equipment, the introduction of AR and VR based activities both for in-class and extra curriculum activities provide a promising way for more efficient Mathematics training activities.

The study examines the problem of using augmented and virtual reality in the process of blended learning in general secondary education. Analysis of recent research and publications has shown that the use of augmented and virtual reality in the educational process has been considered by scientists. However, the target group in these studies is students of higher education institutions. Most of the works of scientists are devoted to the problem of introducing augmented reality into the traditional educational process. At the same time, the use of augmented and virtual reality technologies in the process of blended learning remains virtually unexplored. The study analyzes the meaning of the concept of "blended learning". The conceptual principles of blended learning are considered. It has been found that scholars differ in their understanding of the concept of "blended learning". Sometimes researchers distinguish between the components of blended learning: full-time and online learning. The study presents the special advantages of blended learning and the taxonomy of blended learning. It was found that there are some difficulties in implementing blended learning. The article outlines the practical use of virtual and augmented reality. The definition of augmented and virtual reality is given. The mixed reality is considered as a separate kind of notion. Separate applications of virtual and augmented reality that can be used in the process of blended learning are considered (MEL Chemistry VR; Anatomyou VR; Google Expeditions; EON-XR). As a result of the study, the authors propose possible ways to use augmented reality in the educational process. The model of using augmented and virtual reality in blended learning in general secondary education institutions was designed. It consists of the following blocks: goal; teacher’s activity; forms of education; teaching methods; teaching aids; organizational forms of education; pupil activity and results. Based on the model, the methodology of using augmented and virtual reality in blended learning in general secondary education was developed. The methodology contains the following components: target component, content component, technological component and resultant component. The methodology is quite universal and can be used for any subject in general secondary education. The types of lessons in which it is expedient to use augmented (AR) and virtual reality(VR) are determined. Recommendations are given at which stage of the lesson it is better to use AR and VR tools (depending on the type of lesson).

In the field of surgery, major changes that have occurred include the advent of minimally invasive surgery and the realization of the importance of the ‘systems’ in the surgical care of the patient (Pierorazio & Allaf, 2009). Challenges in surgical training are two-fold: (i) to train the surgical residents to manage a patient clinically (ii) to train them in operative skills (Singh & Darzi,2013). In Pakistan, another issue with surgical training is
 that we have the shortest duration of surgical training in general surgery of four years only, compared to six to eight years in Europe and America (Zafar & Rana, 2013). Along with it, the smaller number of patients to surgical residents’ ratio is also an issue in surgical training. This warrants formal training outside the operation room. It has been reported by many authors that changes are required in the current surgical training system due to the significant deficiencies in the graduating surgeon (Carlsen et al., 2014; Jarman et al., 2009; Parsons, Blencowe, Hollowood, & Grant, 2011). Considering surgical training, it is imperative that a surgeon is competent in clinical management and operative skills at the end of the surgical training. To achieve this outcome in this challenging scenario, a resident surgeon should be provided with the opportunities of training outside the operation theatre, before s/he can perform procedures on a real patient. The need for this training was felt more when the Institute of Medicine in the USA published a report, ‘To Err is Human’ (Stelfox, Palmisani, Scurlock, Orav, & Bates, 2006), with an aim to reduce medical errors. This is required for better training and objective assessment of the surgical residents. The options for this training include but are not limited to the use of mannequins, virtual patients, virtual simulators, virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality. Simulation is a technique to substitute or add to real experiences with guided ones, often immersive in nature, that reproduce substantial aspects of the real world in a fully interactive way. Mannequins, virtual simulators are in use for a long time now. They are available in low fidelity to high fidelity mannequins and virtual simulators and help residents understand the surgical anatomy, operative site and practice their skills. Virtual patients can be discussed with students in a simple format of the text, pictures, and videos as case files available online, or in the form of customized software applications based on algorithms. In a study done by Courtielle et al, they reported that knowledge retention is increased in residents when it is delivered through virtual patients as compared to lecturing (Courteille et al., 2018).But learning the skills component requires hands-on practice. This gap can be bridged with virtual, augmented, or mixed reality. There are three types of virtual reality (VR) technologies: (i) non-immersive, (ii) semi-immersive, and (iii) fully immersive. Non-immersive (VR) involves the use of software and computers. In semi-immersive and immersive VR, the virtual image is presented through the head-mounted display(HMD), the difference being that in the fully immersive type, the virtual image is completely obscured from the actual world. Using handheld devices with haptic feedback the trainee can perform a procedure in the virtual environment (Douglas, Wilke, Gibson, Petricoin, & Liotta, 2017). Augmented reality (AR) can be divided into complete AR or mixed reality (MR). Through AR and MR, a trainee can see a
 virtual and a real-world image at the same time, making it easy for the supervisor to explain the steps of the surgery. Similar to VR, in AR and MR the user wears an HMD that shows both images. In AR, the virtual image is transparent whereas, in MR, it appears solid (Douglas et al., 2017). Virtual augmented and mixed reality has more potential to train surgeons as they provide fidelity very close to the real situation and require fewer physical resources and space compared to the simulators. But they are costlier, and affordability is an issue. To overcome this, low-cost solutions to virtual reality have been developed. It is high time that we also start thinking on the same lines and develop this means of training our surgeons at an affordable cost.

User Experience and Engagement in the Reality–Virtuality Continuum: A Special Issue Guest Editorial

The Medical Metaverse, Part 1: Introduction, Definitions, and New Horizons for Neuropsychiatry.

This paper includes a research review in five bibliographic databases on using the application of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) in physical and occupational therapy (POT). This literature review addresses five research questions and two sub‐research questions. A total of 36 relevant studies were selected in the review based on the defined keywords and inclusion‐exclusion criteria. The primary motivation for using the application of VR and AR in POT is that it is accurate, involves higher patient participation, and requires less therapy recovery time. The standard software tool used is the Unity 3D game engine, and the common device used is the Oculus Rift HMD. Various applications of VR and AR consist of different VR environments and AR contents used in POT. Post‐stroke rehabilitation, rehabilitation exercises, pain management, mental and behavioral disorders, and autism in children are the main aspects addressed through the VR and AR environments. Literature review indicates that questionnaires, interviews, and observation are the primary metrics for measuring therapy's effectiveness. The study's findings show positive results such as reduced treatment time, nervousness, pain, hospitalization period, making therapy enjoyable and encouraging, improved quality of life, and focus on using the application of VR and AR in POT. This review will be relevant to researchers, VR and AR application designers, doctors, and patients using the application of VR and AR in POT. Further research addressing multiple participants with clinical trials, adding new VR environments and AR content in VR and AR applications, including follow‐up sessions, and increasing training sessions while using the application of VR and AR in POT are recommended.

Background: Metaverse, the disruptive digital technology, has demonstrated significant effectiveness in the fields of preventive and cognitive therapy, diagnostics, surgical interventions and rehabilitation. Virtual Reality (VR), a part of Metaverse, integrates imaging data and input from users and deliver a 3D graphical output which can be visualised through a wearable headset. Augmented reality (AR) on the other hand, can control the presence of the user in the real world. Methodology: A review was undertaken of peer-reviewed literature on the emerging evidence on the applications of AR and VR in healthcare. Research studies carried out to identify effectiveness of AR and VR technologies were included. Result: AR & VR have been effective in rehabilitation of patients of Autism Spectrum Disorders and Mild Cognitive Impairment by improving motor skills, social skills and various cognitive indices like task learning and attention. In the surgical field, AR head mounted device (HMD) can provide three-dimensional, patient specific anatomic information during surgery. It minimises surgical complications and improves patient satisfaction. AR is of particular interest in complicated spinal surgeries and orthopaedic manoeuvres which require high level of surgical skill. AR has also been used successfully in different types of robotic surgeries as well. In several countries AR technology have been used in basic medical and advanced surgical training. Major challenges in implementing AR and VR in the field of health care persist in the domains of cyber security, ethical issues and cost effectiveness. Conclusion: VR and AR technology can maximise patient outcomes and rapidly develop satisfactory patient management in fields of cognitive research and surgical interventions. More clinical trials with immersive digital technologies are required. Ethical and cyber security challenges are present but there are ways to overcome them. It is our duty as physicians to participate in the development of these innovations to ensure virtual health reality benefits for our patients in real-world setting.

Augmented Reality is a variation of Virtual Environment (VE) in Virtual Reality (VR). Virtual Reality technologies Virtual Environment makes user experiences immersion inside a synthetic environment and user cannot see the real world. In contrast, Augmented Reality (AR) medium of information added to the real world in registration with the world to combine virtual objects and real world. Technically, Augmented Reality is able to enhance all five senses by adding digital or computer generated information such as images, audio, video, interaction and overlaying them over in physical world. Its most commonly use is visual. Augmented Reality allows the user to see the virtual object blended in real world environment. To apply Augmented Reality to applications used for illustration the architecture or infrastructure of building, 3D visual model is a content which is good way to show obviously architecture's element because it is able to display the appearance of each building part separately responding to camera perspective in real-time. That means AR system have to re-render the digital object every time the viewer changes position even a tiny bit as temporal registration. Therefore, the computations for three-dimensional computer graphics must be considered about rendering system on the observed devices because time lags could be occurred when lacking computational speed while it is operating the imagery overlay on the top of the physical world for each frame. There are mainly constraints that are limited the AR system performance such as limited memory and limited computational capability. To enhance the limitations of handheld devices, this research applies Relief Mapping algorithm to 3D model in Augmented Reality technology to reduce the number of polygons on the facade of Sino Portuguese Architecture which consist of many bas-relief patterns on their facades. Our system uses game engine, Unity3D, for real-time rendering and Vuforia SDK implemented augmented reality application on handheld device. The result of the research after applying Relief Mapping technique instead of using the conventional modeling creation, more than 80,000 polygons/ 1 bas-relief, is to create by having a single polygon per a bas-relief and the quality of visualization is compatible to each other on AR application.

This research examines the Android operating system in the context of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) applications with a focus on the Moblo (AR) and Relax (VR) applications. Android, as the primary operating system in mobile devices, offers a powerful and flexible platform for AR and VR application development. Moblo is an AR application that allows users to design and visualize furniture in a real space, while Relax is a VR application that provides meditation and relaxation experiences in a virtual environment. This research aims to understand how the Android operating system supports the development and operationalization of AR and VR applications, as well as evaluating the performance and user experience of these two applications. The results show that Android provides significant support for AR and VR application development, with Moblo and Relax showing good performance and providing a satisfactory user experience. However, further optimization is needed to ensure consistent performance across Android devices.

The articles in this special section focus on virtual and augmented reality applications in science and engineering. There has been an explosive growth in visually augmenting the spaces around us by creating environments where visual, aural, and kinesthetic immersive experiences afforded by virtual and augmented reality (AR) powerfully engage us in a way no other medium can. Virtual reality (VR) recreates the sensory world around us entirely through computer-generated signals of sight, sound, touch (and in some cases smell and taste). AR overlays the computer-generated sensory signals on the real world allowing the user to experience a rich juxtaposition of the virtual and the real worlds simultaneously. Together, these technologies are transforming the way people from all walks of life—scientists, engineers, educators, industrial workers, health care professionals, artists, and everyday people— see and use the information that matters most to them, in an intuitive embodied way. Just as mobile technology has revolutionized how we communicate with each other and with our digital worlds, ubiquitous VR and AR will fundamentally alter how our society creates, inspires, engages, and learns fromthe information-rich and enriched cyberspaces around us. While affordable consumer- quality VR and AR hardware is becoming available, significant work is needed to adopt VR and AR for important and difficult scientific and societal applications.

There is a growing interest for the broad use of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) in the fields of bioinformatics and cheminformatics to visualize complex biological and chemical structures. AR and VR technologies allow for stunning and immersive experiences, offering untapped opportunities for both research and education purposes. However, preparing 3D models ready to use for AR and VR is time-consuming and requires a technical expertise that severely limits the development of new contents of potential interest for structural biologists, medicinal chemists, molecular modellers and teachers. Herein we present the RealityConvert software tool and associated website, which allow users to easily convert molecular objects to high quality 3D models directly compatible for AR and VR applications. For chemical structures, in addition to the 3D model generation, RealityConvert also generates image trackers, useful to universally call and anchor that particular 3D model when used in AR applications. The ultimate goal of RealityConvert is to facilitate and boost the development and accessibility of AR and VR contents for bioinformatics and cheminformatics applications. http://www.realityconvert.com. dfourch@ncsu.edu. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Computational thinking (CT) skills are increasingly important in education to prepare students for the challenges of the digital age. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) have been introduced as immersive technologies that have the potential to enhance CT skills through more interactive learning experiences. However, there is still a gap in understanding the effectiveness of these technologies in supporting the development of CT, particularly in different levels of education and disciplines. Although several studies have highlighted the benefits of AR and VR in education, no systematic review integrates these findings to identify advantages, challenges, and opportunities for further implementation. Therefore, this study conducted a systematic review based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines by analyzing 25 empirical studies (AR=17, VR=8) obtained from the Scopus database (2008-2024). The analysis addresses four key research questions: (1) the current state of AR/VR in CT development, (2) their advantages, (3) implementation challenges, and (4) future research directions. The results show that AR is more widespread than VR at various levels of education, with dominance in higher education followed by secondary and primary schools. Computer science is the main field of application of AR and VR, while AR is also widely applied in mathematics to increase interest and problem-solving. A total of 11 studies reported significant impacts of these technologies on CT, with AR being superior in increasing student motivation and engagement, as well as aiding in problem-solving and debugging. In contrast, VR provides a more immersive learning experience by strengthening concept understanding, especially in programming and recursion. However, several obstacles in the application of AR and VR, such as hardware limitations, costs, and user skills, affect the effectiveness of these technologies in the learning environment. This study also identified potential future research, including the exploration of VR in primary and kindergarten education, the application of VR in non-computer science fields, and the efficient use of these technologies in supporting the CT process. This study provides more precise insights into the optimal ways of utilizing AR and VR in developing CT skills. It is a reference for educators, policymakers, and researchers in supporting CT learning.

The perceptual behavior of consumers on a product displayed in the market has a vital role in analyzing the importance given to that product. Therefore, various strategies have been developed to understand this consumer behavior in the selection of products. Immersive technologies like virtual, augmented, and mixed reality are among them. With the foremost feature of immersion in the virtual world and interaction of users with virtual objects, virtual reality, and augmented reality have unlocked their potential in research and a user-friendly tool for analyzing consumer behavior. In addition to these technologies, mixed reality also has a significant role in investigating consumer behavior. Studies on immersive technologies in food applications are vast, hence this review focuses on the applications of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality in the food selection behavior of consumers. The behavioral studies are elicited to develop new products based on consumer needs, to understand the shopping behavior in supermarkets for real-time usage, and to know the influence of emotions in a selection of products. The findings suggest that virtual, augmented, and mixed reality induce immersion of the users in food selection behavioral studies. Information on the technological advancements in the tools used for bringing immersion and interaction are discussed for its futuristic applications in food. Though immersive technology gives users a realistic virtual environment experience, its application in food systems is in the budding stage. More research on human response studies would contribute to its innovative and inevitable application in the future.

The purpose of this chapter is to observe the 3D asset development and product development process for creating real-world solutions using augmented and virtual reality technologies. To do this, the authors create simulative software solutions that can be used in assisting corporations with training activities. The method involves using augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) training tools to cut costs. By applying AR and VR technologies for training purposes, a cost reduction can be observed. The application of AR and VR technologies can help in using smartphones, high performance computers, head mounted displays (HMDs), and other such technologies to provide solutions via simulative environments. By implementing a good UX (user experience), the solutions can be seen to cause improvements in training, reduce on-site training risks and cut costs rapidly. By creating 3D simulations driven by engine mechanics, the applications for AR and VR technologies are vast ranging from purely computer science oriented applications such as data and process simulations to mechanical equipment and environmental simulations. This can help users further familiarize with potential scenarios.