Why I’m Putting RyanSchultz.com Blog on the Backburner for the Foreseeable Future – Ryan Schultz

When you’re being chased by crocodiles, it’s hard to remember that your original goal was to drain the swamp.

—Modern proverb, perhaps Cajun

So, as you all know, I haven’t been posting much on the blog lately (once again).

There are a few reasons, the most important of which is that I moved my library. The building where my full-time job is in the university science library closed, and the staff and collections were all moved elsewhere. The building is scheduled to be completely torn down and renovated over the next two and a half to three years. Folks, moving a large library is a big deal! And just a few days after the move in June, I was fortunate enough to host a conference for science librarians that drew attendees from all over North America. Last month, excited! In my new office, I barely had a chance to unpack all my moving boxes!

But another reason I haven’t been writing much lately is because of the Virtual Reality Lab project I’m working on. While the renovation of the room needed for the future home of the XR (extended reality) lab is underway (scheduled for completion in January 2025), I rented a small room in a major arts and humanities library and set up a makeshift VR demo room with a wireless Meta Quest 3 VR/AR headset and a Vive Pro 2 PCVR setup, connected to a Windows PC with a good graphics card (See the image above).

I spent most of last week and this week previewing and reviewing a selection of apps and experiences, drafting a “menu” for Meta Quest 3 and Vive Pro 2 that I will be giving to library staff to help them decide what VR/AR experiences they want to see. Most of them are completely new to virtual and augmented reality, so we still need to figure out the best procedures for providing these demos, cleaning the hardware between users, and helping them avoid VR sickness.

In fact, I often find myself spending so much time going back and forth between different VR apps to draw menus that Myself VR sickness was a surprise to me as a VR veteran! I have been using various headsets since January 2017 and can usually stay in VR for 2 hours at a time!

I discussed this at the first meeting of the University of Manitoba VR/AR/MR/XR group.The new group I’m organizing is for University of Michigan faculty, staff, and students working in virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, extended reality, spatial computing, and whatever catch-all term they come up with next!), and the head of the computer science department, said part of the problem, in his opinion, is that many new app developers aren’t designing their offerings with the same amount of care and attention that the first VR apps had. His point is valid.

In other words, some VR/AR developers are just throwing stuff out there with new and improved content creation tools without doing proper testing. I think there is some merit to this idea based on my experience over the past two weeks. So I learned to stop all VR/AR activities until the nausea goes away. And it reminded me to always keep VR sickness in mind when giving demos!

With ready-made apps (For educational and non-gaming purposes, but some apps Gamification Element) We’ve included a few examples of educational worlds people have created across various social VR platforms on the Quest Store (for MetaQuest 3) and the Steam Store (for Vive Pro 2). Some examples include Sansar’s NASA Apollo Moon Landing exhibit, Resonite’s The Universe micro-macro experience, and AltspaceVR’s take on the Acropolis and Agora of Ancient Athens ported to VRChat. many There’s a lot of content out there! I want library staff to experience as much as possible and see the potential of this technology. (We’re focusing on free apps and experiences right now, but eventually we’ll have the budget to buy software.)

So, I’ve been very busy and sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed. Often, when I get home from work, last What I want to do is sit in front of the computer, especially Put on another VR headset! So my trusty Valve Index with Knuckles controllers sits quietly gathering dust on my computer desk at home.

I apologize for the lack of blog posts lately, but as you can see, I’ve been trying to keep things moving! I think I’ll have to put this blog on the back burner for the foreseeable future. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

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