What if you could walk inside a stadium, see players warming up and fans cheering before a big game, or fly around inside a virtual zoo?
For decades, these kinds of real-world simulations have been too costly or too risky to create. But with the advent of inexpensive virtual reality and other technologies, that's all starting to change, leading to a boom in immersive learning experiences.
"The potential for immersive learning is huge," said Brian Whooley, an MIT professor and co-founder of the educational VR and AR startup InterSense. "The use of immersive education is becoming more widespread across the globe. People can now experience everything from their offices or from their homes."
InterSense is among a handful of companies that are offering virtual reality and augmented reality tools that allow people to experience different kinds of places, work and even medical conditions. And, in some cases, these tools can also be used by those outside the field to learn how to deliver medical care or learn a new language.
InterSense's current medical training platform, Medical Office VR, was used to train medical residents in France earlier this year. Last year, InterSense also produced a VR simulation to train medical students on how to intubate a patient.
InterSense's Medical Office VR offers a fully immersive simulation of a surgery room with mock equipment, real lab tables and scrub counters. You can navigate through the virtual facility while wearing a virtual reality headset and using a real-world remote control to pull up a medical apparatus.
In France, more than 5,000 medical students were trained with InterSense's platform.
"We're not replacing doctors, but we're adding another tool in the toolbox," Whooley said.
Beyond medical education, educational and recreational experiences in the world of virtual reality could soon be easier to find and more affordable than ever. In the short term, that might mean getting more people into video games, immersive art exhibits or sporting events. In the future, there are likely to be multiple kinds of similar experiences for people to try and engage in.
A VR version of "Minecraft" will go on sale this fall, likely with the help of some partner companies. And major studios like Ubisoft and Warner Bros. have already made big investments in the VR space, both by making their own VR games as well as through collaborations with other companies.
Meanwhile, many brands and media companies are already finding value in virtual reality.
In addition to creating these educational experiences, InterSense is also looking at how companies can use VR and AR to manage their own customer service and sales interactions.
The business models for major games companies will have to change in response to virtual reality:
Virtual reality is the future of science museums, museums of art and music, and other learning institutions.
The growth in the number of startups and venture capitalists willing to fund new companies in this space demonstrates the enormous potential these technologies have to change the world.
"For virtual reality and augmented reality to reach their true potential, we need the next generation of VR and AR pioneers," said Geoff Blaber, research director at CCS Insights.
InterSense has raised a total of $1.9 million in seed funding to date, including a $500,000 seed round in 2015, with the startup having participated in the University of Southern California's StartX accelerator program. The company is currently based in San Francisco and employs 15 people.
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