The Smart Digital Lab is located in the new University of Auckland Engineering Building and is set up for flexible use.  There is room for people to do motion tracking, move around in VR, collaborate in AR, and even sometimes just sit down and do some serious number crunching.  The lab is as much a virtual space as a real space, with much of the work occurring off campus in real-life situations.

Two of the core tools used are VR and AR, both with single users and groups of people solving problems collaboratively.  VR is excellent for fully immersive situations, whereas AR is beneficial for muli-user situations.  We have a range of consumer and commercially available headsets that reflect the types of equipment that would be found in workplaces.

The optical tracking system can be used to track people’s movements for bringing realistic movement into the Virtual Environments, or it can be used to track multiple people working together.  This data can be used in real-time to feed back to build a truly Mixed Reality system, and analysed later to understand how people reacted to different situations.

Complex models for simulation and digital twins require powerful and accurate processing units.  Artificial Intelligence allows us to find data to find trends, and for visual analysis.  Several PCs are available for this purpose.

In VR, you can usually walk around.  At the Smart Digital Lab, you can even ride around on a specially outfitted bicycle.  This is particularly useful when exploring transport related projects.

Determining the shape of buildings and structures is vital to understanding how they respond to stresses and disasters.  Our 3D Scanners are critical for this purpose.