Prospective students can visit Harrisburg University (HU) of Science and Technology without leaving the comfort of their own homes thanks to the recent launch of the University’s online 3-D virtual campus tour.
Earth Systems Science Professor Michael Meyer, Ph.D., teamed with students to create a new virtual experience that allows visitors to wander and explore campus at their own pace.
The tour, found on the University’s website, offers views of nearly every floor of HU’s main building, with interactive descriptions of classrooms, meeting spaces, labs, common areas and more. It also stops through the neighboring Student Union, Esports facilities, and even a dorm. Plans to expand the tour are in the works, and visitors later will also be able to check out HU’s aquaponics greenhouse and the new Education Center expected to open next month at South Third and Chestnut streets.
“The 3D models we have been developing for the University are one part of a larger ‘Expanded Reality’ push at Harrisburg University,” Meyer said. “While much of that effort is in teaching/research advances using Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR and VR respectively), modeling technology is an essential element.”
The tour design provided invaluable hands-on experience to students, Meyer said.
To create real spaces in VR and to map out a space’s dimensions for AR, a model first was made. Meyer and students utilized an infrared laser scanner paired with a 134-megapixel camera to scan a space; the laser gives each pixel an XYZ point in space so that the three-dimensional nature of a room or building could be reconstructed virtually.
Students who helped create the 3D tour included: Aaron Stone, an Environmental Science major, who completed his internship via the project by labeling building scans; Gideon Olufemi-Ajayi has been working on this project since the summer as a paid student worker; Ryan Bosely, who was a teaching assistant last summer for HU’s virtual reality summer camp, volunteered to learn more about the physical recreation of spaces; and Martin Johnson got a crash course in 3D scanning at the beginning of the semester and has worked to build his modeling skills through the fall.
“The great thing about the technology we use is that it can be expanded onto very easily,” Meyer said. “In this the next few weeks, we will be adding more HU resources like the Aquaponics Greenhouse and, maybe, the new building.”
“HU already had a well done 3-D Tour, but it was done before the pandemic which saw a huge increase in the ability to make and share virtual spaces,” Meyer added. “These models have far more interactivity to them, with lots of labeling that allow current or prospective students to wander and explore campus.”
ABOUT HARRISBURG UNIVERSITY
Accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, Harrisburg University is a private nonprofit university offering bachelor and graduate degree programs in science, technology, and math fields. For more information on the University’s affordable demand-driven undergraduate and graduate programs, call 717-901-5146 or email, Connect@HarrisburgU.edu. Follow on Twitter (@HarrisburgU) and Facebook (Facebook.com/HarrisburgU).
