Mesh Labs
Students building for the future
Advancing XR content development
Students and faculty at Mesh Labs advance XR production and education, supercharging Arizona State University research and education through immersive, spatial, interactive and gamified experiences.
Based at the ASU Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts, Mesh Labs includes:
- Mesh projects: Creative production to develop XR content for internal ASU clients and external clients.
- Mesh guilds: A network for upskilling students to learn the skills of the future and to become innovative leaders.
The Mesh Guilds
The Mesh Guild System gathers XR practitioners into role-oriented guilds. Each guild weaves like-minded XR practitioners (both novices and experts) across the university for synergistic collaborative sharing of experience: successes, challenges, strategies, etc. Mesh Guilds stay abreast of the latest advancements in the craft and prepare students for work upon graduation. The guilds are also a great place for our partners to source talent who will work in AR/VR in a variety of industries and participate through mentorship, workshops and guest-learning sessions.
UI/UX Design:
Iterating on user interfaces and discussing user experiences and research.
3D Modeling:
Everything 3D, from modeling and rigging to texturing and animation.
Technical Artistry and Quality Assurance:
The technical side of art implementation into games, playtesting and quality assurance testing. How can artists control the quality of XR experiences?
Spatial Sound Production:
Sound design in XR experiences and how we can make sound immersive.
Spatial Game Engine Integration:
Looking at the fundamentals of game structure and design in the code of XR experiences.
Film and Media Production:
Designing film experiences in 360 space, building immersion and playing with space and sound.
Product and Project Management:
Looking at the best product and project management techniques to keep goals, tasks and deliverables on track.
Narrative/Learning Concept Design:
Studying narrative writing, research and story patterns to increase engagement and enhance XR experience goals.
Our work
We invite you to explore some of our projects.
Career XRcade is an Immersive learning experience for students by students to explore different career paths.
The project is designed to help high school students bridge the gap between their educational goals and the skills needed for their future careers. Using desktops or VR headsets, students can jump into various gamified experiences and embark on dynamic learning journeys, bringing to life future careers and the skills needed to thrive in fast-growing industries. There are a variety of virtual worlds introducing you to in-demand careers within cybersecurity and esports. Each Career Land is filled with interactive exhibits, activities, games and interviews that showcase the facets of specific career paths within these industries.
Through dynamic, gamified learning, Career XRcade aims to inspire and excite students about their future careers, encouraging them to make intentional decisions about their education and career paths. Plus, by improving students' imaginative skills and self-efficacy, we believe that Career XRcade can help students become the creators of their own futures.
Key goals of the project:
- Fun, memorable: Make education on different career paths enjoyable so that they become more memorable for students in the future when reflecting on potential careers.
- Easy to understand: Complicated concepts should be easy to pick up and understand at all levels of high school aged students.
- Inspire and educate: Inspire students to consider niche career paths within cybersecurity and esports they may not have known about before.
Cybersecurity Land: Cybersecurity Land is a virtual world in Career XRcade in which students can explore different career paths in cybersecurity. This exploratory environment consists of a central hub that leads to 5 career exhibits:
- Information security analyst
- Security operation analyst
- Blue team analyst
- Red team analyst
- Mobile architect
Different interactions and minigames educate students on important requirements, responsibilities, and vocabulary used and needed on a daily basis in these different roles.
Esports Land: Career Xrcade’s Esports Land is a virtual world in which students can explore different career paths in Esports. Esports Land is structured around a central hub, leading to five career exhibits:
- Game designer
- Game developer
- Team manager
- Esports marketer
- Content creator
Games, simulations, and interactions allow the players to experiment what it would be like to work in an Esports role as well as the responsibilities they would carry.
The project was powered by students from Arizona State University's Meteor Studio in partnership with J. Orin Edson Entrepreneurship + Innovation Institute and made possible by Verizon.
Director: Robert LiKamWa
Project lead: Hanieh Khaleghian
Lead developers: Dion Pimentel, Nathan Anderson, Omkar Watvisave, Agustin Ballesteros
Lead designers: Julianna Piechowicz, Hanieh Khaleghian
Developers: Suhaas Godavarthy, Jackson Ourada, Heli Vachhani, Allyson Huang, Harwinder Singh, Abhiraj Chaudhary, Erofey Izotov
Designers: Steven Hernandez, Michael Wilcoxen, Shailee Shah, Robert Delligatti, Michael Shaughnessy, Mackenzie Leichtman
Previous developers: Austin Porter, Morgan O'Mahony, Nathan Lathrum, Prakhar Bhartiya, Taetum Knebel, Sakan Pengdis
Previous designers: Amanda Federico, Francesca Galvan, Zoe Purcell, Jesus Franco Yescas, J.R. Esguerra, Evan Koutsogiannis
Act One partnered with Meteor Studio to present arts field trips in Virtual Reality across Arizona.
Act One and Meteor Studio partnered together to create Season Two of Act One’s VR field trips, focusing on highlighting Native American artists from Arizona. Act One is a non-profit organization seeking to bring field trips to students in the classroom through the use of Virtual Reality headsets and experiences. Students are able to learn about subjects they would otherwise find inaccessible.
Key goals of the project:
- Visual engagement: Improve on visual effects from last season and encourage students to look around the artists' studios and spaces.
- Engaging audio: Design audio that matches the stories, culture, and mood of each Native American artist.
- Made for everyone: Make the story short, fun, easy, and interesting to make the experience enjoyable regardless of age.
With Meteor Studio’s assistance, Act One has been able to provide VR field trips at no cost to Title I schools in Arizona to help students learn more about the arts. Act One is helping provide these schools with an art education by bringing the experience directly to their classrooms. The organization listened to local educators, who had asked for more education on local indigenous artists. In this way, students receive exposure to the local artists and have a better understanding of the impact of indigenous artists on Arizona culture and history.
Meteor Studio helped interview and document the art and process of three indigenous artists: Tyrell Tapaha, The Duncan Family and Janelle Stanley. Students at Meteor Studio helped undertake the filmmaking, audio recording, scripting, editing, VFX and delivery of the documentaries. Each documentary was delivered in a few different formats with English and Spanish subtitles to make the films accessible to those with hearing impairments or those who do not speak English.
Project leads: Skye Lucking, Matthew Soson
Videography: Felipe Arciniega, Brandon Friedman, Isaac Barrio, Monica Gaytan Inchaurregui
Developers: Andrea Ramirez Cordero, Anthony Delphy, Naureen Rizvi, Maya Mokofisi
Advised by: Robert LiKamWa
Planetary Parfait offers immersive planetary exploration in augmented and virtual reality. Planetary Parfait is a system enabling scientists to collaboratively explore planetary datasets and their many data layers across VR, AR and desktop platforms. By integrating interactive 3D visualization into scientific workflows, it bridges the gap between traditional 2D tools and modern collaborative analysis.
This project was powered by JMARS, or Java Mission-planning and Analysis for Remote Sensing. JMARS is a geospatial information system (GIS) developed by ASU's Mars Space Flight Facility to provide mission planning and data-analysis tools to NASA scientists, instrument team members, students of all ages and the general public.
Studying layers of orbital and drone-based remote sensing data allows scientists to understand the geologic history of planets. Such data provide geological context, but limitations of existing 3D visualization tools force domain experts to resort to older 2D tools that do not effectively support collaborative visual analysis. To explore the integration of collaborative 3D visualization into scientific workflows, we developed Planetary Parfait — a visualization system for interactively accessing planetary datasets to allow collocated and remote users to collaborate across platforms.
Please find our code repository in GitHub or download the JMARS AR Viewer app and instructions for preparing your own Terrain Scene on our JMARS tutorial page.
Advised by: Robert LiKamWa
Project Lead: Lauren Gold
Developers: Orion Dobos, Yan Rong, Arabelle Friedman
Past developers: Alexandra Barrett, Carlos Encinas Guerrero, Anthony Delphy, Joshua Hula, Olivia Wang
Komatsu Haptics is a VR pre-op inspection training simulator using haptic gloves.
In the mining industry, new recruits undergo thorough training to acquire expertise in their role as haul truck operators. The project asked how can we leverage modern technology like virtual reality (VR) and haptic technology instead of traditional training methods to revolutionize the training and education modules in the construction and mining industry. Haul truck operators are required to conduct a pre-operational (pre-op) inspection before operating the truck. This includes, inspecting whether all components are in good working condition and also checking the truck’s surrounding area for safety. For this, we have developed a VR Pre-op Inspection Training Simulator using Haptic Gloves to grant repeatable pre-op inspection training to improve the operational efficiency of the recruit, reduce the overall training time, and train recruits at their own pace in a safe environment. While VR provides higher data visualization abilities, improves problem-solving skills, and enhances spatial awareness, the haptic gloves allow new recruits to feel and more deeply understand the truck they will be operating.
The challenge
During our research (focus group sessions, online Zoom meetings and site visits), the subject matter experts explained that the traditional training methods come with certain issues that need to be rectified. These issues are responsible for the new recruits not being able to perform a pre-op inspection like a professional truck operator. The lack of visual elements in the classroom session impacts engagement with the training module. This results in less knowledge transfer and even lesser knowledge retention among recruits. Recruits neglect reading the truck manuals as they are a few hundred to a few thousand pages long. On the mine site, larger groups (five-to-10 people) put a strain on both the trainer and the resources. Taking these trucks out of operation for training recruits and interrupting the mining process incurs a significant loss of time and money for the company. Oftentimes, the trainer and recruits can be in adverse weather conditions like extreme heat 120 degrees Fahrenheit or extreme cold -60 degrees Fahrenheit for multiple days of training. This results in recruits spending less time on site with the truck and getting less hands-on experience.
The solution
In Komatsu Haptics, the recruits start their training at the virtual safety dojo level by putting on the virtual safety gear and selecting the machine to perform the pre-op inspection. They are then guided through a tutorial session that educates them about various features and VR interactions within the experience. In the virtual mine site, the haul truck is divided into 20 sub-zones. The recruits have to inspect each sub-zone with the help of a virtual checklist that provides them with a list of specific component names to inspect within each zone of the truck. After inspecting, they have to update the condition of the component in the checklist. Recognizing the haul truck's size and physical space limitations in training facilities, recruits use the teleportation feature to explore the truck in all zones and sides. Once the inspection in the virtual mine is complete, the recruits go through a quiz level, where they answer questions related to the pre-op inspection they performed. This helps the trainers gauge their progress and decide whether someone is fit to go on-site or needs extra training.
Testing and Result
We conducted three usability tests, one after each phase of the project, to determine the project's progress and identify improvement opportunities. These tests included a total of 25-plus stakeholders comprising mining company representatives (from Komatsu America, Komatsu Japan and Komatsu Germany) and their truck operator trainers. After thorough testing and evaluation by the stakeholders, a unanimous agreement was reached that the project successfully replicated the pre-op inspection process for haul trucks. Stakeholders and subject matter experts emphasized that adopting this VR training platform would provide substantial advantages in training new recruits. Stakeholder and expert feedback included statements like "The project has effectively captured the size and scale of the trucks and machines," "This will help us keep people out of harm’s way and yet find skilled individuals," and "A substantial measure of effectiveness between new and seasoned operators."
Project lead: *Frank Liu
Student leads: Alex Vuong, Agustin Ballesteros
UI/UX: *Tanmay Ghodekar, Olivia Reyes, Ryan Wirjadi
Developers: Mehul Srivastava, Shiling Dai, Robert Davis, Eaden Haresco, Tanay Patel
Advised by: Robert LiKamWa
*Co-primary authors
Hurricane Heroes is an asynchronous cross-platform (Oculus and desktop) Dreamscape experience for Intro to Meteorology Lab students, with a focus on hurricane forecasting, decision-making and safety procedures.
A three act hurricane experience for Introduction to Meteorology Lab students, this project showcases different careers before, during and after a storm makes landfall. Students are able to engage in the narrative experiences in two different formats — desktop or virtual reality! Students are placed in the shows of those reporting on the hurricane before, collecting the information within the storm, and experiencing the hurricane on the ground and coordinating rescue. The experience focuses on forecasting, decision-making and safety procedures implemented during hurricane season.
Key goals included:
- Immersion: Focus on making the user the center of the decision making and the environment accurate with real-world data and audio from actual hurricanes.
- Education: Explain the nuances and complexities of being a meteorologist and show the impacts of collaboration during times of high stress across multiple teams.
- Engagement: Make the experience enjoyable and dramatic to encourage students to complete multiple acts at different stages.
In the classroom
Hurricane Heroes was an experience created for the Introduction to Meteorology Course (GPH 212) at Arizona State University, specifically being a part of the course’s lab (GPH 214). Being online and for any major, any student at ASU is allowed to take the course and go through the experience through desktop and virtual reality. And, for those students without a VR headset, the university offers to mail out and let students borrow headsets specifically to play the game as intended in VR if they'd like as a part of the lab.
Students are given real data from Hurricane Irma that has been redesigned to be easily digestible for the students at any skill level. Students are also given quizzes and answer questions based on the experience to ensure understanding of what is happening during the storyline. The experience correlates to topics discussed in the classroom as well, allowing the students to recall lessons and memorize information using the game.
Project Lead: Rachael Kaye
Student leads: Alex Vuong, Alexandra Barret
Tech artists and designers: Evan Koutsogiannis, Derek Sanchez, Christian Boesch, Sharliz Reyes, Krupa Kapadia, Saeed Pulatov, Mackenzie Leichtma
Developers: Dion Pimentel, Austin Porter, Mehul Srivastava, Abhirup Gunakar, Ashray Inala
Advised by: Robert LiKamWa
Facilites
Mesh Labs operates from the state-of-the-art Media and Immersive eXperience (MIX) Center in Mesa and from ASU’s main Tempe campus at Stauffer Communications Arts B, home of The GAME School, also part of the Herberger Institute.
Connect with us
Whether you’re a student interested in joining Mesh Labs or an organization or client interested in collaborating or seeking services, we invite you to connect with us.
