We worked closely with TAMK to install a 6-metre immersive cylinder that is currently being used across several courses at the university. The cylinder forms part of The Virtual Lab for Social and Health Care, situated in TAMK’s main campus, which serves as an innovative co-creation platform for technology companies, service providers and TAMK students - you can learn more about it in the below webinar.
TAMK also makes use of the Igloo Enterprise software which gives it access to features like Igloo Web, our 360° web browser that enables you to display any website within the space and Igloo Home, a customisable user interface that anyone can use. The students can also make use of Igloo Touch, which allows you to interact with the content from your phone, or Igloo Remote where the whole system can be controlled from a tablet - alongside many other handy features.
To get started with using the cylinder, students from TAMK’s Fine Art course created 360° videos to convey important stories and help others to understand difficult concepts, thus enhancing empathy - which you can check out in our blog post. The cylinder is used to share these 360° videos with others at the university, allowing students to view and discuss the topics covered together, which encourages collaboration.
The university has found the cylinder to be the most effective way to display the content, as it found it was often limited by the constraints of a VR headset. Immersive spaces like the cylinder, help to remove these constraints - they still enable students to be fully immersed in the content, but also enable multiple audience members to view the content at the same time.
The 360° film becomes a shared experience and, for most people, that makes it a more powerful experience. The audience gets the message together and can discuss it together.
Teini Piibemaa, a student who created one of the videos, said, “I know that with VR glasses I tend to get anxiety and motion sickness immediately which also makes it harder to recover after removing the glasses, so the cylinder can be a gentler option for people with the same issues. The cylinder also acts as a uniting piece, since you experience this with other people in the room. VR glasses place you into another reality where you don’t see the people who physically share your space.”
“The Igloo has inspired students, and opened new viewpoints of what can be done in the moving image field, and we’re excited to see what students make next!”
Fanny Niemi-Junkola
Senior Lecturer
