Category: Coursera

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Coursera Offers Training in Building AR Experiences

While 360-degree video has offered a route in to creating for virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) largely remains the province of professional developers. In an attempt to democratise the AR space and open it up to more creators, a free class is being offered on Coursera for those interested in getting started with AR development.

Coursera is an online learning platform that was founded in 2012 by professors at Stanford University. Since then, it has become widely respected by educators and offers users the chance to learn online and accumulate credits from well-known universities and get accreditation from leading companies like Google and IBM.

The new Coursera class in AR is titled ‘Introduction to Augmented Reality and ARCore’ and has been tailored towards those who are just getting started with AR technology. The course was designed for those with little to no prior knowledge and experience of AR app creation.

The course takes about 15 hours to complete, and at the end students can expert to have learned the basics of AR technology, including what it is and how its works along with the skills needed to design an AR experience.

Students who complete the course will be able to get started with building their own AR project using Google’s ARCore development kit and tools like Poly.

ARCore is the successor the Google’s Project Tango and is designed to enhance AR applications for use on smartphones and tablets. ARCore got an update earlier this year, which was announced at Google I/O conference.

The new ARCore tools allow not only the detection of flat planar surfaces, but also introduces enhanced mapping of textured surfaces. Another new feature is Cloud anchors, which allows two different users to interact with the same virtual object. This feature meant that shared and cooperative AR experiences are now possible.

Further information on the Introduction to Augmented Reality and ARCore course, along with the enrolment application, can be found on the Coursera website. Fur further news on AR and education, keep checking back with VRFocus.

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The University of London and Coursera Launch Five VR Courses

Initiatives like VR First have been promoting the expansion of virtual reality (VR) among universities for a while now, aiming to nurture the next generation of developers and creatives. Today, the University of London along with online education specialist Coursera have announced a series of courses called The Virtual Reality Specialisation.

Developed by Dr Sylvia Pan and Dr Marco Gillies from Goldsmiths, University of London, the courses are based on a combined 25 years’ experience in interactive virtual characters for social virtual environments and videogames, motion capture and data driven animation and body language for virtual characters.

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“Many of the mistakes made by Virtual Reality content creators come from not understanding the psychology of how VR works and what it means for how we create content, which is an important feature of this Specialisation,” said Dr Marco Gillies in a statement. “In Virtual Reality users need to physically interact so they feel present in the surrounding environment. This means other characters must respond in the same way they would in the real world. These courses combine theory – the basic psychology of how VR works – with practical production skills. All the time learners are doing the practical work, they are also having to think about the psychology behind it.”

The five courses that will be released starting on 25th September:

  1. Introduction to Virtual Reality
  2. 3D Models for Virtual Reality
  3. 3D Interaction Design in Virtual Reality
  4. Building Interactive 3D Characters and Social VR
  5. Creating Your First Virtual Reality Game

“The launch of the Virtual Reality Specialisation presents a real opportunity to use online learning to grow the number of people equipped with the skills required to become VR content creators. Learners will take the skills developed in each of the preceding courses and put these into practice to develop their own Virtual Reality game,” addes Dr Sylvia Pan, Lecturer in Graphics at Goldsmiths, University of London.

“The development of Virtual Reality courses is pivotal to cementing the role the technology will play in everyday life and across enterprises. The creative industry has naturally become the first sector to integrate Virtual Reality,” continued Pan. “However, the potential applications range across many industries, including healthcare, engineering, online collaboration, and more. The medium of Virtual Reality is developing rapidly and those making content now are creating the fundamentals of the technology. We are really excited that our learners will be able to contribute to the future of Virtual Reality.”

For those wanting to enrol in the Virtual Reality Specialisation being delivered by the University of London International Programmes through Coursera, visit https://coursera.org/specializations/virtual-reality

VRFocus will continue its coverage of the latest VR education projects, reporting back with the latest updates.