DTSC 5777/ INFO 4900: Virtual Reality and its Applications
Spring Semester 2025 Course Information

Instructor: Dr. Sharad Sharma
Professor, Department of Information Science
University of Norrth Texas
E-MAIL: sharad.sharma@unt.edu

Instructor Website: https://sharadonly.github.io/

CLASS HOURS: Monday: 10:00 AM - 12:50 PM
CLASS LOCATION: Discovery Park, Room NTDP K150
OFFICE HOURS: Monday: 1:00 - 2:00 PM, or by appointment
OFFICE LOCATION: Discovery Park, Room E292C

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The goal of this course is to introduce students to Virtual Reality (VR) hardware, software, and provide an opportunity for them to apply this knowledge to applications for education, visualization, and games. This course applies cutting-edge VR technology currently available in academia and industry. Topics include input devices, output devices, computer graphics principles for VR, geometric modeling principles for VR, human factors in VR, data visualization in VR, traditional and emerging applications in VR. Students learn the value of visualization and how to best leverage visualization methods in VR. Students will design, model, and program the VR environment by developing a complete VR application as a group project.

Teaching Assistant

1) TBD

2) TBD

Text Book

Grigore C. Burdea, Philippe Coiffet, Virtual Reality Technology, 3rd Edition, Wiley-IEEE Press, ISBN: 978-1-394-30694-7., August 2024.
Selly S. Hale, Kay M. Stanney. (2014). Handbook of Virtual Environments: Design, Implementation, and Applications, Second Edition, CRC Press. ISBN 978042909871

Course Related Links

All the lecture slides are at Canvas

* Final Group Projects 2024

* Final Group Projects (2023)

* Course Flyer

* Syllabus

* Course Topic Details

* Project Proposal Report

* Final Project Report

* Vizard helpful links

* Vizard 7

Weekly Time Schedule

Dates	Title	Due
13-Jan	Introduction (VR/AR/MR/XR)
20-Jan	3Ds Max	Assignment 1: 3Ds Max + Google Sketch Up Due: 27 Jan
27-Jan	VR Input Devices	Assignment 2: Vizard, Due: 3 Feb
3-Feb	Python Programming (Vizard)	Assignment 3: Unity3D, Due: 17 Feb
10-Feb	VR Input Devices, Vizard/ Python Programming	Assignment 4: Unity3D, Due: 24 Feb
17-Feb	VR Output Devices, Unity Programming: Unity, Unity Interface, Unity UI Interface, Interface Overview, survival-shooter-tutorial	Assignment 5: Unity3D, Due: 3 March
24-Feb	Computer Graphics Principles for VR
3-Mar	Mid Term Exam	Unity 3D UI Player Settings , Slider, Button, Health and Damage
10-Mar	Spring Break
17-Mar	Project Proposal Presentation	Project Proposal Report
24-Mar	Geometric Modeling Principles for VR
31-Mar	Human Factors in VR
7-Apr	Data Visualization	Mid Project Demo
14-Apr	Traditional Applications in VR/
21-Apr	Emerging Applications in VR
28-Apr	Group Project Presentations/ Demo, Presentations.	Due date for Report
5 May	Final Exam