ATLASrift – a Virtual Reality application

PubDate: Oct 2015

Teams: University of Chicago；University of Massachusetts；University of Pittsburgh

Writers: Ilija Vukotic, Edward Moyse, Riccardo Maria Bianchi

PDF: ATLASrift – a Virtual Reality application

Abstract

We present ATLASrift – a Virtual Reality application that provides an interactive, immersive visit to ATLAS experiment. We envision it being used in two different ways: first as an educational and outreach tool – for schools, universities, museums and interested individuals, and secondly as an event viewer for ATLAS physicists – for them it will provide a much better spatial awareness of an event, track and jet directions, occupancies and interactions with detector structures. Using it, one can learn about the experiment as a whole, visit individual sub-detectors, view real interactions, or take a scripted walkthrough explaining questions physicists are trying to answer. We briefly describe our platform of choice – OculusRift VR system, the development environment – UnrealEngine, and, in detail, the numerous technically demanding requirements that had to be fulfilled in order to provide a comfortable user experience. Plans for future versions include making the experience social by adding multi-user/virtual presence options, event animation, interactive virtual demonstrations of key high energy physics concepts, or detector operating principles.