Lifelike Training in XR: How VIROO Redefines Workforce Development
For companies in high-risk industries, “traditional” training methods are far from ideal. Hands-on training could expose untrained workers to dangerous environments, allowing them to make expensive or even fatal errors. And while training methods like lectures and reading don’t present any direct risk, these methods have respective retention rates of 5% and 10%—meaning workers could easily make mistakes down the line.
As a result, an increasing number of businesses are turning to extended reality (XR) technology for their workforce development and training needs. This training method has a 75% retention rate and empowers employees to learn about dangerous jobs with little to no risk.
The more immersive your XR training is, the more successful it will be—and it’s hard to get more immersive than Virtualware’s VIROO Rooms. In this article, we’ll explain what this virtual reality room product does, how it can enhance your XR training program, and how you can implement a VIROO Room at your workplace.
What is a VIROO Room?
While virtual reality technology provides unmatched immersion, that immersion often comes at a cost. Since VR headsets put users in another world, they tend to isolate people from their actual surroundings—including other people in the area. However, that’s not an issue with VIROO Rooms.
VIROO Rooms are designed to turn room-sized physical spaces into realistic XR environments. As a result, they can deliver an even higher level of immersion than “traditional” VR, allowing for highly realistic training in a safe, controlled environment. And since multiple users can explore and interact with the same VIROO Room simultaneously, this solution effectively eliminates the isolation that can come with VR training.
The Benefits of VIROO Rooms
Are you wondering what sets VIROO Rooms apart from other VR training options? When your business starts using a VIROO Room, you’ll have a chance to:
Combine real and virtual environments. In a VIROO Room, users can freely explore virtual worlds and get the intuitive, hands-on training they need.
Offer collaborative, team-oriented VR training. Everyone in your VIROO Room will have a shared experience. That means they’ll be able to interact and work as a team as easily as they would in real life.
Connect with VIROO Rooms around the world. The collaborative opportunities VIROO Rooms provide aren’t limited to the people physically inhabiting these spaces. Instead, workers can virtually interact with colleagues in other countries while using a VIROO Room.
Deliver a high level of precision. VIROO Rooms let workers experience full-scale XR scenarios designed to simulate the complexity of the real world.
How Can It Be Implemented? 3 VIROO Room Use Cases
VIROO Rooms have already been put to use by companies and other institutions around the world. Some real-life use cases for these rooms include:
Nuclear Energy Training
It’s not hard to understand why nuclear energy is a high-stakes industry—or why effective employee training is a must in this line of work. With that in mind, Virtualware and energy company GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy worked together to introduce a VIROO Room-powered nuclear training program. This program helps workers learn about fuel movement and vessel assembly/distension in a realistic but totally safe environment.
Railway Training
Spanish railway infrastructure manager ADIF teamed up with Virtualware to create a VIROO Room simulating railway infrastructure. In this simulator, employees can learn about rail traffic safety, risk prevention, and other topics related to railway construction and maintenance. While designing this program, Virtualware created a virtual railway network covering over 100 km.
Education
Outside of workforce training, VIROO Rooms have been adopted by various educational institutions. That includes the Faculty of Engineering at McMaster, which worked with Virtualware to build a VIROO Room for students and industry partners at McMaster Innovation Park. Meanwhile, medical students can use VIROO Rooms to learn about anatomy without having a real cadaver in the room.
Choose MACE VL for Your VIROO Room
Even if your enterprise VR fleet only consists of a few headsets, installing and maintaining this equipment can be more challenging than you might think. Of course, these difficulties will only increase when you choose to open a VIROO Room at your facility. To truly enjoy the benefits of your new VR training room, you’ll need assistance from an industry expert.
At MACE Virtual Labs, we’ve partnered with Virtualware to offer its VIROO platform in the United States—including VIROO Rooms. Whether you opt to establish one of these rooms or a smaller VR fleet, we can prepare your VR hardware and software and ensure that everything keeps running smoothly. Contact us today to get started!