Logo Rob Buckley – Freelance Journalist and Editor

Is the future 3D?

Is the future 3D?

Will 3D be the next must-have technology for schools? Students will be able to immerse themselves in environments and study objects they could never examine, using little more than glasses and a projector or TV. With 3D technology cheaper than ever, not just to buy but for creating content, and with students now used to 3D thanks to cinema and home theatre technology, will VR finally see some uptake? And if it does, who are going to be the winners?

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Even the casual cinema-goer will have noticed that the past decade has brought a new dimension to the silver screen - the third dimension. With just a pair of special glasses, cinema-goers can see the events on-screen happen as though they're right in front of them, and with 3D TV sets and Blu-Ray players, they can enjoy the same experience at home.

Much of current education technology is based on two-dimensional representations of information, whether it's on a whiteboard, projected, on a computer monitor or in a textbook. Yet with these 3D technologies now at affordable prices, the possibility for education to benefit from the third dimension is very much here.

Certainly, there are already some early adopters in this country using 3D technologies to improve their teaching. Martin Biron, head of school for construction at the College of North West, has been working with 3D technologies for more than six years. Largely, this has been through simulated 3D - objects modelled in three-dimensions but displayed on 2D screens - but students, most of whom are online learners, have recently been able to expand their learning experience to full 3D through glasses if they've so desired.

The school uses the virtual online environment Second Life, where it has two 'campuses', to enable students to interact with one another through simulated versions of themselves, attend lessons and handle detailed simulations of real-world objects. "This blended methodology is very useful and beneficial," says Biron. Rather than having to come into the college to study particular pieces of machinery and techniques, students can stay at home and work at their own pace over the internet. Because everything is virtual, objects that could not be created or afforded in the real world can be explored. "We even have central heaters built on a giant scale with water flowing through them."

As well as Second Life, the college has worked with Cengage Learning's Skills2Learn VR software to develop models that allow students to practise their soldering techniques on virtual pipes before they eventually work on the real thing. "It's saved us thousands. The cost of copper is going through the roof, but if students study and apply the technique virtually, we find when they do the task in reality, they understand the method better and there's a lot less wasted."

Biron says that by deploying 3D in this way, the college has avoided losing business from learners who demand more than simply "being lectured to" and who appreciate the versatility in learning it offers. The investment the college has made in 3D - a few thousand pounds in its Second Life activities and a few tens of thousands for the dedicated 3D developer needed to produce some of the models as well as the Skills2Learn app - has also delivered a "sizeable return" that's much greater than that investment.

Biron envisages 3D become an even greater part of the learning experience, particularly when Google's Glass - an Internet-connected pair of glasses that can overlay information on the real world - becomes available commercially.

Xavier Fouger, head of global academic programs at French company Dassault Systèmes, argues that removing this need to physically visit somewhere, as well as the return on investment, is what will drive the adoption of 3D. "A big change that is purely economic in education is that the cost of education must be reduced. Many institutions are taking the initiative to reduce costs." For example, he says, in France, several high schools are offering an application that provides the 3D experience of how to operate a cutting machine, using 3D glasses similar to those used in cinemas. "You spend less time in the lab learning how to operate the machine." Harvard and other universities are also using both projected and 'immersive' 3D, in which people can walk around in a room where the walls and ceilings feature projected 3D content, to visit not only remote locations but locations, such as the Giza Plateau, mocked up as they would have appeared in previous centuries, complete with buildings that no longer exist. On top of all this, the company is also looking to augment digital textbooks with 3D content, so that they become much more interactive experiences.

Dassault is also looking to augment this kind of visible 3D with a more immersive experience, where so-called 'haptic' feedback allows users not only to see 3D computer-generated content but to 'feel' it. "This was very expensive but is now affordable. We're starting on a project designed to equip all French high schools with this kind of virtual learning reality for a cost of €5,000 per school."

Paul Wilson of Epson agrees that the cost of 3D has now come down to the point where it's affordable for schools. Six months ago, his company announced a 3D projection system aimed at secondary schools with a recommended retail price of £1,300; add in 3D glasses costing £30 for a pack of five (or picked up from the local cinema or a third-party) and a £400-700 silver screen to be projected onto, depending on how big you want it to be, and the system still costs less than £2,500.

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