Rumi Mitra, a senior analyst in extended reality innovation at Accenture, spoke to two computer science classes this April about extended reality (XR), including augmented and virtual reality.

 

Mitra explained that her company helps clients interested in technology use XR internally or for a product they want to show consumers. Accenture’s work covers everything from strategy to ideation, design process and software development. One of the reasons she said she likes working in XR is because it involves both the left and right brain.

 

“You work on storytelling and the creative side of things, but there are also very technical problems,” Mitra told students in classes led by Justin Iwerks, head of the Computer Science Department. “So, there’s problem-solving and science in it as well.”

 

Mitra wasn’t always planning to go into XR. She earned her B.A. from Williams College in English, with a concentration in cognitive science. She also had an interest in film and interned at an LA-based production company reading screenplays and novels. However, after graduating from college, she decided to get a dual master’s degree in computer and information technology and computer graphics and gaming technology from the University of Pennsylvania. While in grad school, she interned at Prologue and worked on demos for Audi in VR, and designed and built a music video demo for Lady Gaga in Samsung Gear VR.

 

Traditional film and VR differ in key ways, Mitra discussed. In a movie, the director gets to decide where to take the viewer, but in VR, the viewer is in control of where he or she goes. So, the designers need to think about lighting and audio cues, plus character interactions, to guide the user. Also, whereas film is typically around 30 frames per second, VR needs to be at least 90 frames per second or else the viewer will start to feel nauseous or disoriented.

 

Mitra also talked with the students about some of the current devices in assisted reality, augmented reality and virtual reality and where XR is headed in the future, including devices that will allow for more sensory experiences in motion, touch and even smell. She also talked about XR that is already available to the every-day person, such as Snapchat’s filters, which are examples of augmented reality. BMW has an app that places a life-size model of a BMW on a flat surface so that a consumer can walk around the car and see it from all angles and customize colors. Ikea has a similar app that lets a consumer place a chair or other objects inside a room to see if they fit well with the surroundings. Some of Sephora’s kiosks allow people to try filters on their face to see how lipstick, eyeshadow, blush or other products look before buying the products.

  

The class ended with a hands-on activity in Unity, a game engine used to build 2-D and 3-D graphics, games and simulations. Students learned about how to import models, lighting, shading and interactions between objects.