Virtual Reality Optics Lab

Project Goal: Create a user-defined optics laboratory to design and perform optical experiments and observe both geometrical and physical optics data within a 3D virtual reality environment.

The cost of common optical equipment and the time required to design and test optical systems demands an improved model to analyze such systems. Using an established communication link between Polaris-M and the Unity game engine, the team developed a realistic laboratory simulation intended for optics students to model and manipulate custom optical experiments in virtual reality, or VR.

The team members split the project into two components: Unity and Polaris-M development. Within Unity, the VR environment simulates an optics laboratory in which inputs are rendered and user-defined. Polaris-M retrieves data from these inputs to calculate and send optical results back to Unity, where these results are visually represented in 3D space.

Polaris-M VR enables a user to conduct geometrical and physical optics experiments in an interactive 3D environment through intuitive user interface controls. The user can construct experiments using emitters, mirrors, polarizers, retarders, lenses and detectors, each with characteristics that can be user-defined. Rendered results include ray tracing, polarization ellipses and spot size diagrams.