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Background: Virtual reality (VR) technology is emerging as a powerful tool in medical training and has potential benefits for paramedic education. Aim: The aim of this paper is to report the development of ParaVR, which uses VR to maintain paramedics' skills. Methods: Computer scientists at the University of Chester and the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust (WAST) developed ParaVR in four stages: identifying requirements and specifications; alpha version development; beta version development; and management—development of software, further funding and commercialisation. Results: Needle cricothyrotomy and needle thoracostomy emerged as candidates for the prototype ParaVR. The Oculus Rift head-mounted display was combined with Novint Falcon haptic device and a virtual environment crafted using 3D modelling software, which was ported to the Oculus Go virtual reality headset and the Google Cardboard VR platform. Conclusion: VR is an emerging educational tool with the potential to enhance paramedic skills development and maintenance. The ParaVR programme is the first step in the authors' development, testing and scaling up of this technology.

Virtual reality entertainment and serious games popularity has continued to rise but the processes for level design for VR games has not been adequately researched. Our paper contributes LevelEd VR; a generic runtime virtual reality level editor that supports the level design workflow used by developers and can potentially support user generated content. We evaluated our LevelEd VR application and compared it to an existing workflow of Unity on a desktop. Our current research indicates that users are accepting of such a system, and it has the potential to be preferred over existing workflows for VR level design. We found that the primary benefit of our system is an improved sense of scale and perspective when creating the geometry and implementing gameplay. The paper also contributes some best practices and lessons learned from creating a complex virtual reality tool, such as LevelEd VR.

Navigating a powered wheelchair and avoiding collisions is often a daunting task for new wheelchair users. It takes time and practice to gain the coordination needed to become a competent driver and this can be even more of a challenge for someone with a disability. We present a cost-effective virtual reality (VR) application that takes advantage of consumer level VR hardware. The system can be easily deployed in an assessment centre or for home use, and does not depend on a specialized high-end virtual environment such as a Powerwall or CAVE. This paper reviews previous work that has used virtual environments technology for training tasks, particularly wheelchair simulation. We then describe the implementation of our own system and the first validation study carried out using thirty three able bodied volunteers. The study results indicate that at a significance level of 5 percent then there is an improvement in driving skills from the use of our VR system. We thus have the potential to develop the competency of a wheelchair user whilst avoiding the risks inherent to training in the real world. However, the occurrence of cybersickness is a particular problem in this application that will need to be addressed.

We present VRIA, a Web-based framework for creating Immersive Analytics (IA) experiences in Virtual Reality. VRIA is built upon WebVR, A-Frame, React and D3.js, and offers a visualization creation workflow which enables users, of different levels of expertise, to rapidly develop Immersive Analytics experiences for the Web. The use of these open-standards Web-based technologies allows us to implement VR experiences in a browser and offers strong synergies with popular visualization libraries, through the HTML Document Object Model (DOM). This makes VRIA ubiquitous and platform-independent. Moreover, by using WebVR's progressive enhancement, the experiences VRIA creates are accessible on a plethora of devices. We elaborate on our motivation for focusing on open-standards Web technologies, present the VRIA creation workflow and detail the underlying mechanics of our framework. We also report on techniques and optimizations necessary for implementing Immersive Analytics experiences on the Web, discuss scalability implications of our framework, and present a series of use case applications to demonstrate the various features of VRIA. Finally, we discuss current limitations of our framework, the lessons learned from its development, and outline further extensions.

We describe a mixed reality environment that has been designed as an aid for training driving skills for a powered wheelchair. Our motivation is to provide an improvement on a previous virtual reality wheelchair driving simulator, with a particular aim to remove any cybersickness effects. The results of a validation test are presented that involved 35 able bodied volunteers divided into three groups: mixed reality trained, virtual reality trained, and a control group. No significant differences in improvement was found between the groups but there is a notable trend that both the mixed reality and virtual reality groups improved more than the control group. Whereas the virtual reality group experienced discomfort (as measured using a simulator sickness questionnaire), the mixed reality group experienced no side effects.

We report on the design, implementation and evaluation of , a framework for building immersive analytics (IA) solutions in Web-based Virtual Reality (VR), built upon WebVR, A-Frame, React and D3. The recent emergence of affordable VR interfaces have reignited the interest of researchers and developers in exploring new, immersive ways to visualize data. In particular, the use of open-standards web-based technologies for implementing VR in a browser facilitates the ubiquitous and platform-independent adoption of IA systems. Moreover, such technologies work in synergy with established visualization libraries, through the HTML document object model (DOM). We discuss high-level features of and present a preliminary user experience evaluation of one of our use cases.

This paper presents recent additions to our Wheelchair-VR application, in particular the use of different drive configurations. We have previously shown that Wheelchair-VR can be used to improve driving skills. Here we consider the utility of the application in allowing users who are in the process of purchasing or upgrading a wheelchair to experience different configurations and options in a cost-effective virtual environment. A preliminary study is presented, which suggests that this approach can be effective.

International audience; Purpose Training in Interventional Radiology currently uses the apprenticeship model, where clinical and technical skills of invasive procedures are learnt during practice in patients. This apprenticeship training method is increasingly limited by regulatory restrictions on working hours, concerns over patient risk through trainees' inexperience and the variable exposure to case mix and emergencies during training. To address this, we have developed a computer-based simulation of visceral needle puncture procedures. Methods A real-time framework has been built that includes: segmentation, physically based modelling, haptics rendering, pseudo-ultrasound generation and the concept of a physical mannequin. It is the result of a close collaboration between different universities, involving computer scientists, clinicians, clinical engineers and occupational psychologists. Results The technical implementation of the framework is a robust and real-time simulation environment combining a physical platform and an immersive computerized virtual environment. The face, content and construct validation have been previously assessed, showing the reliability and effectiveness of this framework, as well as its potential for teaching visceral needle puncture. Conclusion A simulator for ultrasound-guided liver biopsy has been developed. It includes functionalities and metrics extracted from cognitive task analysis. This framework can be useful during training, particularly given the known difficulties in gaining significant practice of core skills in patients.

This paper discusses the design issues and implementation details of building a medical training simulator. Example projects that have been undertaken by the Visualization and Medical Graphics group at Bangor University and our collaborators are used to illustrate the points made. A detailed case study is then presented of a virtual environment designed to train the Seldinger Technique, a common procedure in interventional radiology. The paper will introduce a medical practitioner to the technology behind a medical virtual environment. It will also provide an engineer with an overview of many of the issues that need to be considered when undertaking to build such an application. The paper ends with the author’s views on future developments in this exciting domain.