Virtual reality design lab opens: technology facilitates exchange of information, ideas. (IT Strategies: Special Report).

It looks like an ordinary computer lab, but Laurentian University's Mining Innovation, Rehabilitation and Applied Research' Corporation's new design and training facility is where the 3-D images projected upon the screens of their Virtual Reality Labs (VRL) are born.

With eight work stations, the recently opened facility located at the Wilet Green Miller Centre is a complement to the VRL lab, which opened last year.

"You've got to bring data into the Virtual Reality Lab and this location is where you would prep that data," says Andrew Dasys, the lab's startup director. "Everything we do in virtual reality is transferred data from a number of software packages and you do this here."

The VRL is billed as the only such facility in the world designed to meet the needs of mining and exploration industry.

Modelled after similar facilities at Simon Fraser University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the concept of the facility is to create partnerships and networking opportunities, and to allow research academics to exchange ideas and knowledge with the private sector in order to find real world solutions.

The VRL and design room is being marketed internally for graduate students and university user groups in biology, ergonomics, human kinetics, mathematics and in computer science. Now they seek to open their door wider for partnership opportunities with outside groups as a centre of excellence for mining research and any number of disciplines.

Before VRL programming was carried out from individual office desk tops. Now, with twin monitors mounted side-by-side at each workstation, partners with special 3-D glasses can visualize what their data would look like up on the larger three screens of the VRL.

"It's really technology transfer of getting people to work together and share knowledge," says Dasys. "It's paying off. In a short period of time, we've seen productivity and focus increase."

The design room, valued at $175,000, was constructed with funding from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Innovation Trust and some industry contributions. It was open on an experimental basis for four months before its official Oct. 1 opening.

Falconbridge and Placer Dome have been staunch supporters since Day 1, says Dasys, and have been frequent users of the lab. Now even junior exploration companies such as Fort Knox and Foxpoint Resources are renting out the facility to better analyse their drill hole data.

"VRL is revolutionizing the mining industry," says Dasys. "It's changed how people interpret data.

MIRARCO also unveiled a collaboration agreement with Blaze I.T., a Sudbury geomatics service provider.

Blaze delivers strong programming "close to the hardware" experience and their business experience combined with their Centre for Integrated Monitoring Technology (CIMTEC) software skill set, says Dasys.

"We see great opportunity and potential for our company in this strategic alliance with MIRARCO," says Cathy Nadjiwon, BLAZE's president and general manager. "By combining our expertise in laser imaging and digital mapping with their skills in visualization and utilizing the resources available through CIMTEC, we can undertake projects that would be beyond our individual capacity."