A virtual reality environment for personalised maritime training
Europe's maritime industry needs to keep abreast of the latest technologies and invest in tangible assets, like competence and skills, to maintain a competitive edge in today's international market. Aiming to offer support for organisations to renew their strategies and employees' competencies and to avoid becoming outdated, the SLIM-VRT project proposed an innovative approach to the radical renovation of maritime learning and training systems. SLIM-VRT developed an e-learning system architecture with different collaborative modules among which the most innovative is the 'Virtual reality tool' (VRT), providing advanced interaction capabilities. The integration of the VRT into the educational platform enables 3D graphics-based experiences in the context of maritime applications according to users' own learning needs and terminal technical capabilities. Built on the Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) standard and other software tools, virtual worlds were generated according to real scenarios of shipping operations, which can be used as additional learning material. When immersed in a virtual world, students experience scenes which follow a behaviour pattern established by the objectives imposed in the learning process. The Virtual reality tool allows the dynamic adaptation of the content and interaction mechanisms in response to changes in the students' interests, knowledge level or communication characteristics. It matches the individual needs with educational programmes and material, without requiring the mobility of trainees and importantly, supports user-friendly learning methods. Though targeted to maritime e-learning and training, the VRT is devised so as to be flexible and applicable in diverse domains such as modal transportation sectors. Multimedia information associated to the 3D models has been fully decoupled from the VRML description of the scenarios, reinforcing the reusability of the educational content in further e-learning applications.