Get Real With Extended Reality
Extended reality (XR) has moved beyond gaming and design. Manufacturing, healthcare, education, and defense industries now use immersive tools for product visualization, workforce training, and collaborative research, and they need people who can put those tools to work. UW-Stout’s Xperiential Lab (XR) gives you hands-on access to that technology as part of your coursework, so you can explore it, test it, and build with it long before you reach the workplace.
The XR Lab will take you to places you’ve only read about. Walk through historic architecture, experience other cultures or practice a new language in an immersive setting. Step inside concepts that are hard to grasp on a page, from cell structure and gene editing to high-level physics, chemistry and the methods hackers use to break into a network. You can also rehearse high-stakes situations without real-world risk. That includes assembling and disassembling equipment, following safety protocols on a manufacturing floor or job site, responding to an emergency, and working through patient-care or public-safety scenarios.
Degrees That Do More in This Lab
- B.F.A. Animation & Digital Media
- B.S. Applied Mathematics & Computer Science
- B.S. Computer & Electrical Engineering
- B.S. Computer Science
- B.S. Engineering Technology
- B.S. Game & Media Studies
- B.F.A. Game Design & Development - Art
- B.F.A. Industrial & Product Design
- B.F.A. Interior Design
- B.S. Mechanical Engineering
- B.S. Video Production
Dive Deeper Into the Xperiential Lab's Equipment
The HP Omen 35L confidently delivers the sustained GPU and CPU performance that professional studios rely on for VR and AR development. Its ventilated chassis and strategically placed fans keep performance steady through render and compile sessions, giving you reliable output without unnecessary complexity. For students, that means more freedom to build and test complex 3D environments and real-time simulations without workflow-breaking slowdowns.
Specifications
- Intel® Core™ i7-14700F (2.10 GHz)
- 1 TB Samsung NVMe™ Performance M.2 SSD
- Kingston FURY Beast 64GB DDR5-4000 MT/s (4 x 16 GB)
- NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 5080 Graphics Card (16 GB GDDR7)
With standalone operation and true color passthrough, the Meta Quest 3 VR Headset has become an industry standard for prototyping mixed reality experiences without the setup overhead of PC-tethered systems. Whether you’re working on a R&D project for industry or developing your passion project, the Meta Quest 3 will help you build, visualize, and iterate on immersive projects in real time all while creating portfolio-ready XR work that impresses your future employers.
Specifications
- Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 Processor
- 512 GB Memory
- 8GB LPDDR5 RAM
- Dual 2064 x 2208 Displays
UW-Stout Polytechnic’s 120-camera photogrammetry scanner captures your subject from every angle simultaneously, generating hyper-accurate 3D models in a fraction of the time traditional scanning or manual modeling requires. For XR development, that means turning real objects, environments, and even people into production-ready assets for VR and AR experiences with a level of realism hand-modeling can't match. Beyond mixed reality, students can apply the same capture pipeline to game asset creation, digital preservation, and visual effects work — employable skills in demand across the broader 3D-content industry.
Specifications
- (120x) Canon EOS Rebel T6 Cameras w/ Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS II Lens
- (20x) Esper Triggerboxes
- HP Omen 35L Gaming Desktop GT16 PC
- Custom Software: Canon Control Client and Canon Control Server
Frequently Asked Questions About Extended Reality
Extended Reality (XR) is a umbrella term used to refer to immersive technologies, including Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR), and others, that create or blend digital and real environments using computer technology.
Virtual Reality (VR) is a simulated environment in which you can interact in real ways.
You may have seen it used or heard of Beat Saber (rhythm game); fitness apps like Supernatural, FitXR, and Bodycombat; healthcare medical training; or even mental health and therapy.
Other uses include:
- The manufacture of vehicles and appliances
- Robot operator simulations
- Batman: Arkham Shadow
- Museum and immersive art experiences
- Historical experiences
- Addressing phobias (like fears of flying, heights, public speaking)
- Surgery simulations and medical training
- Real estate/property management tours
- Construction and logistic planning and review
- Molecular modeling and biological science simulations
- Education
- Fitness training
- Collaborative workrooms
Augmented Reality (AR) refers to the real-time integration of digital information into a user's physical environment, including content overlayed onto the real world. AR often uses a touch screen to control it.
Real-world examples include Ikea's interior room design app and similar tools from Hallman Lindsay and Valspar that allow you to visualize your physical space with new furniture or paint colors. Perhaps the most well-known example in game design is Pokemon Go, and Instagram's overlay filters highlight its use in social media.
Mixed Reality (MR) is more of an advanced Augmented Reality.
For example, a digital object like a book could be anchored to a particular shelf in your room in the real world, and you could pick it up, turn the pages, etc., with your actual hand while using a headset instead of a touch screen.