The CAMH Queen West campus leveraged a VR experience to facilitate the design approval process for a new facility. Key areas were modeled and explored using an HTC Vive headset, allowing stakeholders to evaluate the layout for efficiency, visibility, and patient safety. This immersive approach provided immediate, experiential feedback to designers, enabling necessary modifications.

Weekly updates to the VR experience were a staple, with stakeholders participating in hour-long sessions to critique and suggest alterations to the design.

To make these design sessions more efficient, an iPad controller was integrated into the VR setup, bypassing the need for extensive controller training that was previously taking up valuable time. This allowed architects to effortlessly guide the VR experience from a bird's-eye view, navigating across various discussion points with ease.

Further improving the VR experience, physical chairs were equipped with trackers to replicate their position in the virtual environment, offering users a realistic sense of space from behind a care station. For a more user-friendly interface, iPads were provided as a straightforward alternative to VR controllers, streamlining the process and conserving time during the design reviews.

I developed the pipeline for this virtual experience, focusing on speed and efficiency during model reviews. Directly importing models into Unity, a suite of scripts was executed to apply a grid material for scale reference and Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) to render basic shadows. Furthermore, points of significance, such as patient areas and the tracked chair, were accentuated in blue for easy identification.

This project underscored the practical benefits of VR technology more than any other I've been involved with. It was gratifying to witness medical professionals engaging with the virtual space, concentrating on crucial aspects like visibility and accessibility, rather than on the mechanics of controller usage or the next steps in the process.