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. 2017 Feb 14;5(1):4.
doi: 10.1186/s40359-017-0173-4.

VREX: an open-source toolbox for creating 3D virtual reality experiments

Madis Vasser  1 , Markus Kängsepp  2 , Murad Magomedkerimov  2 , Kälver Kilvits  2 , Vladislav Stafinjak  2 , Taavi Kivisik  3 , Raul Vicente  2 , Jaan Aru  2   4
Affiliations

VREX: an open-source toolbox for creating 3D virtual reality experiments

Madis Vasser et al. BMC Psychol. .

Abstract

Background: We present VREX, a free open-source Unity toolbox for virtual reality research in the fields of experimental psychology and neuroscience.

Results: Different study protocols about perception, attention, cognition and memory can be constructed using the toolbox. VREX provides a procedural generation of (interconnected) rooms that can be automatically furnished with a click of a button. VREX includes a menu system for creating and storing experiments with different stages. Researchers can combine different rooms and environments to perform end-to-end experiments including different testing situations and data collection. For fine-tuned control VREX also comes with an editor where all the objects in the virtual room can be manually placed and adjusted in the 3D world.

Conclusions: VREX simplifies the generation and setup of complicated VR scenes and experiments for researchers. VREX can be downloaded and easily installed from vrex.mozello.com.

Keywords: Attention; Change blindness; Memory; Spatial perception; Toolbox; Virtual reality.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
A typical pipeline for an experiment. Creating the environments (a), building the experiment structure (b) and running the study in VR (c)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
VREX menu layout. Main menu (a), list of created experiments (b) and the structure of a particular experiment (c)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Sample environment generated procedurally with the parameters set to include five rooms with three possible sizes
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Three different results with the automatic furnishing option (a, b & c)
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
An overview of the available pre-made objects in VREX
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
The 3D editor allows to navigate and place individual objects in the scene manually (a), select objects in the environment (b) and change different properties of the chosen object, such as position, rotation, size and colour (c)
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
An overview of the change blindness experiment from the participants view. First the player is welcomed with a text message (a) and then transported to the experimental environment (b). While looking around in the room, the cupboard changes its visibility when out of the headsets field of view (c)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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