MSc Virtual and Augmented Reality

The aim of this module is to develop your knowledge of effective and academic research design at Masters level and provide guidance on the purpose and design of literature reviews; the use of theory; writing strategies; citation and ethical considerations. It provides an understanding of how the range of qualitative, quantitative and mixed method data approaches can be most appropriately applied. It provides the knowledge and research skills you need to:

• establish the most effectual research design and method for the dissertation project and write a successful research proposal
• prepare for the project module and for a possible future research career

This module aims to develop your ability to plan, execute and report in-depth on a major investigation.

This module will introduce you to the Mixed Reality domains, providing both a theoretical perspective on the classification of virtuality and reality, and the associated hardware and software requirements.

Students will be exposed to the current state of the art in AR/VR development by evaluating the hardware, software and middleware requirements of a modern AR/VR solution.

Students will learn the software engineering principles and core algorithms which are used to implement Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality applications using aspects of a modern game engine.

We will focus on the architectural layers of a modern game engine and their relevance to building AR/VR Solutions in tandem with how we integrate AR/VR SDKs into a modern engine and deploy software to AR/VR supporting devices.

We will look at various architectural design strategies and provide in-depth coverage of various core modules and tiers within a game engine. This involves applying realtime programming techniques and data structures, and practically applying them to develop mixed reality applications.

This module's central focus in on practically constructing three-dimensional virtual worlds for Virtual Reality using Industry standard Digital Content Creation tools and game engine level editing software by employing traditional level design techniques such as Block outs/Grey Boxes, Meshing Passes, Lighting, Post Processing and Polish Passes to construct a Virtual world inside a game engine that can be experienced directly on a real-world Virtual Reality headset.   The levels will be tailored to a Virtual Reality environment and deployed to state of the art Virtual Reality headsets to allow students to build immersive, believable virtual spaces for use with VR and XR spaces. 

In order to develop a deep understanding of these design techniques, the module will also teach the mathematical concepts required to understand how translation, rotation and scaling to 3D Meshes are applied as well as the concepts which underpin related graphics development areas such as materials, post processing and cameras.  Therefore, this module teaches fundamental mathematical techniques such as numerical calculus, analytical geometry, linear algebra and angular concepts.  

This module explores the theoretical and technical domains that underpin the current state of the art in Virtual Reality development. From fundamental fields of study such as Data Visualisation and Neuro Perception, through to hardware concerns, visual fidelity and real-time rendering approaches required to achieve smooth, immersive environments, you will evaluate and practically apply the latest development techniques to produce a Virtual Reality application, which can incorporate real-world data into a Virtual environment to provide an interactive application based on a Real World Scenario related to fields such as Architectural Visualisation, Engineering and Simulation, Product Configuration.  

This module offers an opportunity for students to undertake a substantial collaborative project. Students will design, implement and evaluate a mixed reality solution in response to a brief provided by industry. Students will critically select, evaluate and deploy a range of techniques on a suitable mixed reality platform that will enable them to meet the aims of the collaborative project. Students will evaluate their contribution to the project via a technical post-mortem.

This module explores the hardware, theoretical and technical domains that underpin the current state of the art in Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality development, identifying the commonalities between them all, as well as the techniques specific to each domain. From fundamental fields of study such as Mobile Platforms and Hardware Components; Game Engine Architectures for XR/AR/VR; Object, Plane, Facial and Pose Tracking;  Scene Estimation;  Depth Sensing and Monocular SLAM; environment rendering approximation techniques to state-of-the-art approaches to key aspects such as Occlusion, students will evaluate the latest research trends and development techniques to apply Extended Reality via the fields of Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality to various real-world problems.