Applicazioni per Sistemi di Realtà Virtuale Immersivi e Non Immersivi: Un caso d'uso sull'Experiential Training per Utenti Neuroatipici

Over the past 30 years, the concept of virtual reality has expanded evermore. Generally differentiated between two systems, such as immersive and not-immersive, virtual reality has been mainly appreciated in the medical world. The latter’s objective is to follow the path of digital innovation through the development of new services in the field of rehabilitation, treatment of mental health issues, and training designed for neuroatypical users. The term ”neuroatypical” describes individuals who live on the autistic spectrum or people with other developmental differences. These users’ need for practicing individually challenging social interactions, into a more relaxing platform, soon met the potential of virtual reality technology to create a type of training known as VR Experiential Training. This type of approach aims to better prepare neuroatypical users to face their worries and anxieties about the most socially challenging situations while easing them into a safe space created to help them overcome their fears. In our case, firstly, to get a more immersive training, the project (although initially planned for a PC-only release) took the direction of a complete PCVR conversion. Then, despite the lower degree of immersiveness, it was decided to develop the same scenario, with a technology known as WebGL, to simplify the accessibility to a more significant number of users.