Virtual Reality Training Platform: A Proposal For Heavy Machinery Operators In Immersive Environments

Training in a virtual environment can augment the current methods of professional's training, preparing them better for possible situations in the field of work while taking advantage of Virtual Reality (VR) benefits. This paper proposes a cost-effective immersive VR platform designed in real-context usage, consisting of an authoring tool that permits the creation and manipulation of training courses and the execution of these courses in an immersive environment. Accomplishing a good training experience in an immersive simulation requires an equilibrium between the simulator performance and the virtual world aesthetics quality. Thus, in addition to presenting the development of the proposed training platform based on Unity technologies, this paper describes an objective performance evaluation of a virtual training scene using the different render pipelines and across immersive and non-immersive setups. Results confirmed the platform's viability and revealed that the rendering pipeline should be defined according to the display device used.