Teaching
- Frontal classes: In our GeoVires Lab, the students will experience a new and innovative learning methodology, based on the virtually-enhanced experience of the topics dealt with during traditional, class-based teaching. The viewers will navigate across geological environments, both marine and terrestrial ones, with the help of teachers, guiding them through the exploration and facilitating their learning process. After a theoretical introduction to the topics at hand, the students will have to chance to recognize and examine, on VR-equipped computers, the geological features and processes they have just learnt about.
- Thesis projects: The students will benefit from VR exploration also in regard to the final BSc of MSc dissertations; with the help of the VR experience, they will be able to collect quantitative data and qualitative observations related to their research topic, with the aid of the software installed on the Lab’s PCs. Furthermore, VR exploration will enable them to gain a holistic view of geological processes and phenomena, thanks to the possibility of exploring specific features from several viewpoints and at different scales, both within large-scale environments (for instance, when virtually accessing a volcano’s slopes) and in small-scale ones (such as the close-up examination of a fossil).
- Seminars: Seminars will be planned and centered on selected, topics focusing on terrestrial and marine environments. The students will have a chance to enhance their understanding of the discussed topics through personal as well as teacher-guided VR explorations.
Research
Through our VR software, users are offered the invaluable possibility of taking immersive field surveys, which allow them to virtually get access to geological sites characterized by hard logistic conditions and, thus, to explore structures and features that would not be accessible in the field. Different exploration modes are available, such as walking and flying like in drone or airplane modality, taking a comprehensive, overall look at the surveyed area. Moreover, our high-quality 3D models are designed to help teachers, researchers and students to map features of the reconstructed environment (by tracing lines, points, polygons) and to make high-detail quantitative measurements of large- and small-scale geological objects. The outputs of these measurements can include topographic profiles and the estimation of the length and attitude of geological objects.
Outreach
With the purpose of reaching out to a wide audience and raising awareness of the processes that have been shaping Earth throughout geological time, our innovative technology will be made available to the academic as well as the non-academic public, through dissemination events, to be held at the national and international level. During such events, members of the audience will be encouraged to personally experience geological environments, both marine and terrestrial, guided by a team of experts in VR applied to geoscience-related topics.