Graphics Programs Reference
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is presented aiming to familiarize post-graduate
students with the facilities of a large-scale chemical
plant, which are not otherwise easily accessible to
students, and provide them the opportunity to con-
duct a series of virtual experiments. Specifically,
three modules are presented: i) Vicher I dealing
with industrial methods of handling the decay of
catalysts and heterogeneous catalytic mechanisms,
ii) Vicher II, dealing with nonisothermal effects
in catalytic reactions and iii) Safety, which al-
lows students to walk through a chemical pilot
plant to evaluate the hazards and safety systems.
Moreover, many applications have been recently
developed using simple 3D models for the efficient
teaching of chemistry in secondary education,
such as VR-Assisted Chemistry Education (VR-
Assisted Chemistry Education, 2003) and High
School Chemistry Educational and Virtual Reality
(High School Chemistry Educational and Virtual
Reality, 1996).
However, it should be pointed out that the term
“virtual” is also used by a large number of appli-
cations without exclusively implying the use of
virtual reality technology. In most of these cases,
the term is used to indicate that experiments are
not executed in a real laboratory, but in a computer.
Many applications belong to this category, such
as the Oxford Virtual Chemistry (Oxford Virtual
Chemistry, 1996), the Model Science Software
(Model Science Software, 1997), the IrYdium
project (IrYdium, 2000), the Crocodile Chemistry
Crocodile Chemistry (Crocodile Chemistry, 2006)
etc. Nevertheless, the drawbacks of this category
in comparison with virtual reality systems are:
lack of immersion feeling, limitations in interac-
tion and navigation, not realistic representations
of models in three dimensions etc.
Another application is presented in (Georgiou
et al, 2008), the proposed system takes advantage
of virtual reality potentials and recent advances in
Web technologies to provide both a complemen-
tary educational tool and a distance learning ap-
plication for students of chemical engineering. The
fundamental goal of the application is to transfer
via internet each student into an interactive virtual
world, which simulates a real educational process.
Initially, students can navigate in the virtual lab
(Figure 1) and interact with its equipment to ac-
quire the required experience and familiarity with
a chemical laboratory. Subsequently, the second
step of the application involves the simulation
of volumetric analysis experiments with the ac-
tive participation of students in the experimental
process. Specifically, the virtual experiments
supported by the proposed system concern: i)
volumetric analysis of acid from base and vice
versa, ii) volumetric reduction-oxidation and
iii) complexometric neutralization and hardness
estimation. The interactive features of the applica-
tion allow students to conduct virtual experiments
considering all the parameters that may affect the
final experimental results. The main advantage
of this educational approach is that students can
repeat the same procedure without any limitation,
study and compare the results in order to perceive
easier each one of the experimental processes.
Finally, the application contains relative educa-
tional material such as theory, exercises, tests etc
constituting so an integrated educational tool for
distance learning in chemistry.
Another field, in which virtual reality is used
for educational purposes, is medicine. Recent
advances in computer and virtual reality tech-
nologies offer great potential to the development
of advanced medical simulations, which provide
a visually realistic modeling of organs' anatomy
and behavior as well as means of interaction with
the user in real time. One of their beneficial uses
is the training of new doctors allowing practice
without danger to patient and without limits on
the number of times that each student can practice.
Medical simulations provide also a training en-
vironment for study and practice on a variety of
pathologies even on rare or unusual cases without
the need of a patient with a specific disease. Fur-
thermore, they allow actions that are not possible
in real life e.g. navigation through the anatomy
or use of unreal tools etc and they can be used as
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