Mixed reality creates a safe environment for learning. [Click image to enlarge]

The problem: Retraining the victim of a brain injury how to function in his own kitchen without exposing him to sharp objects or hot burners. The solution: Take pictures of the injured person’s actual kitchen. Build a bare-bones dummy version of the kitchen in the lab. Then, use a head-mounted goggle-type device to combine the pictures with the dummy kitchen, creating a safe “reality” for the injured person to relearn kitchen tasks without fear of injury.

EXTRA UCF's Institute for Simulation and Training combines real and virtual images to better train war-zone medics and ambulance drivers. Watch video report

Combining real and virtual images is the stock in trade of the Media Convergence Lab at UCF’s Institute for Simulation and Training. Among other research, the lab has a $2.84-million grant from the National Science Foundation to test whether mixed reality can be used to create more effective museum exhibits — leaving attendees with a more emotional attachment to an issue.

Charles Hughes, director of the Media Convergence Lab and a Pegasus professor in the School of Engineering and Computer Science, and project manager Eileen Smith tested the mixed-reality idea at the Orlando Science Center’s dinosaur exhibit. On one side of a kiosk, a camera showed a view of the actual exhibit of large skeletal models. On the other, a screen mixed real and virtual images with audio to immerse the viewer in the dinosaurs’ original ocean environment, complete with sea creatures.

The results will be used by the Museum of Science and Discovery in Fort Lauderdale to enhance exhibits.

This spring, a team comprising Hughes, UCF economics professors Glenn

A test kitchen incorporates mixed reality.

Harrison and Lisa Rutstrom and IST’s Steve Fiore will look at whether people who experience the devastation of a forest fire in mixed reality will make different public policy decisions from those who only read about the fire’s impact. Participants will view a desktop 3-D scenario of Volusia County. As they make their way virtually through the forest, they will use real money — $80 or $100 — to decide whether to spend on controlled burns and other prevention policies.

The technology could be used to look at other issues, Harrison says, such as hurricane and land-use planning.