From March 22 to 26, Laval Virtual, the virtual reality trade show, took place. Four students from the Institut Image's MIT3D Master's program took on the Virtual Fantasy challenge in the "Limited Time" category. Their virtual museum project on virtual reality earned them second place on the podium!
A leading student competition in Europe
Laval Virtual attracts 15,000 participants, including 4,500 professionals, 20% of whom are exhibitors from abroad (USA, Japan, Canada, Europe, etc.). Virtual Fantasy rewards the best applications created by students or young researchers. The "Limited Time" category involves designing, prototyping, and creating an application on a given theme in 30 hours non-stop. The theme is imposed and announced a few minutes before the start of the competition.
One team, one idea, one application
This year, the theme was to be one of the nine round tables at this 19th edition. Mathis Chartier, Elio Khouri, Valentin Poignant, and David Goncalves chose the theme of tourism. They are students atthe Institut Image in Chalon-sur-Saône in their first year of the MTI3D Master's program. The MTI3D research Master's program aims to train experts in interactive 3D technologies. Through a combination of laboratory research and field application, they are trained to create new products and services based on virtual technologies—virtual reality, augmented reality, 3D, and connected objects.
To support them, they chose Julien Ryard, a research engineer at the Image Institute and virtual reality application developer, as their coach:
This competition gave them all the keys to success in their second year of their Master's degree.
Fifteen teams competed in this contest, and the Institut Image team proposed an application called VRception, in reference to Christopher Nolan's film "Inception." Focusing on the theme of tourism, their virtual museum on virtual reality finished in second place. But their efforts indicate that their second year of master's studies will get off to a promising start.
