Reality Flow
Spring 2020 – John Murray
RealityFlow is a cross-platform authoring tool that makes collaboratively editing 3D content and interactions designed for immersive headsets simple. These headsets include VR headsets, such as the Oculus Quest or HTC Vive, and MR headsets, such as the Microsoft HoloLens or Magic Leap One. Despite the benefits of XR in education and its power to engage audiences, creating new interactive experiences for these devices is expensive and time-consuming, requiring knowledge of Unity and C#. The primary users for RealityFlow include creatives and designers who do not have extensive Unity experience and yet want to develop applications and experiences for immersive headsets. Our plan is to evaluate how neophyte XR creators author and assess content when they have access to simple interfaces and the responses of their users. Our case study involves adding visual accompaniments to be viewed by the audience members of a live orchestral experience composed by Dr. Stella Sung. Participants would be able to wear a HoloLens 2 while seeing various creatures enter and swim around the auditorium. RealityFlow would empower the composer and author to make creative contributors while wearing the headset without programming experience. RealityFlow originated based on John Murray’s experience in the problems associated with creating and testing content for immersive mixed reality headsets in the company he co-founded. It has been developed by two Computer Science Senior Project teams and has been expanded into a collaboration with Ryan McMahan, Stella Sung, and Roger Azevedo as part of the UCF Strategic Plan Innovation Award.