XRLab : Exploring Virtual, Mixed, and Augmented Reality
What if you learned to design experiences, not just apps?
You’ve probably already tried a virtual reality headset or an augmented reality app. But have you ever wondered how such an experience is built, from the initial idea to the final product? How can you make it seamless, useful, and comfortable?
That’s exactly what you’ll learn at 3iL’s XRLab.
Here, you don’t just come to test headsets. You design applications, create 3D content, program interactions, capture motion, integrate real-world data, and test your creations on the final device. You step to the other side of the screen: you become the one who designs the experience.
A Laboratory dedicated to Extended Reality (XR)
XR, short for “extended reality,” encompasses several ways of bridging the real and digital worlds:
- Virtual reality (VR) immerses you in a fully simulated environment.
- Augmented reality (AR) adds digital information to the real world.
- Mixed reality (MR) integrates virtual objects into the physical space and allows you to interact with them.
These distinctions matter, because an industrial simulation, a medical training tool, and a digital twin demonstrator are not designed in the same way. At XRLab, you’ll learn how to choose the right level of immersion, hardware, and interactions based on the need, the audience, and the conditions of use.
Today, these technologies are transforming the way we train, simulate, visualize, and interact with digital systems, particularly in industry, healthcare, education, maintenance, architecture, and product design.
Equipment for designing and testing, not just observing
Imagine a space where you have virtual and mixed reality headsets, 3D workstations, haptic devices, eye-tracking technology, physiological sensors, and motion capture systems all at your fingertips. This is your testing ground.
This diversity allows you to compare the capabilities and limitations of each piece of equipment: field of view, battery life, ergonomics, tracking accuracy, and graphics quality. You test, adjust, and repeat to learn how to make the right choices.
The XRLab is also a true R&D hub. It responds to requests from partners; including companies, local governments such as the city of Limoges, research laboratories, university hospitals, and associations, and gives you the means to develop your own innovations, particularly through its student club.
From concept to implementation: the complete process you’ll master
Developing an XR app isn’t just about writing code. It’s about designing an experience: the user needs to understand where to look, how to interact, and why they’re performing a certain action.
You’ll learn to work with professional tools:
- Blender, for creating, editing, animating, and optimizing your 3D objects and scenes.
- Unity, for building the interactive experience, programming behaviors in C#, integrating peripherals, and generating an app tailored to the chosen XR device.
- Photogrammetry, for reconstructing an object or location in three dimensions from photographs.
An example that sets the tone: Saint-Martial Abbey in Limoges. Students brought this now-demolished building back to life. They modeled it in Blender using historical resources, then prepared the models for a virtual reality tour. To ensure it would run on a standalone headset, they optimized the scenes to balance performance, fidelity, and smoothness.
Capturing movement, understanding interaction
The XRLab features a markerless motion capture system: fast, high-definition, and 360°, it allows you to move naturally, without a suit equipped with sensors or sensors attached to each joint.
The recorded movements can be used to create an animation, reproduce a gesture in a virtual environment, or analyze a motor activity. In the PreFEAR project, physical exercises are captured, processed in Blender, and then integrated into a holographic trainer designed to prevent falls.
The DÔME XR, on the other hand, combines movement with other metrics, such as eye tracking, task performance, or certain physiological signals. This allows you to analyze both what the user is doing and how they are reacting during the experience.
These systems present you with real engineering challenges: calibrating equipment, synchronizing data streams, and ensuring data quality. These skills can be applied, for example, to a digital twin, a virtual representation of an object, space, or system linked to real-world data.
Projects Rooted in Real-World Needs
Here, you won’t be working on theoretical cases: the projects address real-world needs. A space to recreate, a movement to analyze, a situation to simulate, or content to convey.
Several research projects demonstrate the breadth of what you can explore:
- PERACHUTE (HAVAE Lab) analyzes walking in complex situations presented in mixed reality.
- ScanPath (CeRCA Lab) uses eye tracking in virtual reality to study perception and memory.
- StepXR (HAVAE Lab) focuses on body visibility during tasks that involve both cognitive and motor skills.
XRLab also explores heritage and culture. The Chronoscope project, carried out in collaboration with the Cinémathèque of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, has made it possible to envision new ways of presenting film archives in an immersive environment.
Other collaborations with companies focus on training and the creation of interactive experiences, particularly using 360° videos. In each case, you’ll tackle a real-world need, work with a client, and navigate deployment constraints; all with support from the XRLab team.
These projects teach you one essential lesson: a technically successful app isn’t always suitable for its target audience. Ease of use, clear instructions, user acceptance, and the quality of the measurements are just as important as technical prowess.
What you’ll really gain from it
At XRLab, you’ll progress just like an engineer: analyze a need, choose a system, produce or acquire the necessary resources, develop a prototype, test it, and then refine and optimize it.
In this way, you’ll develop cross-functional skills: programming, 3D modeling, UX design, algorithms, data management, hardware integration, and project management.
You can also combine XR with 3iL’s other areas of expertise: artificial intelligence, IoT, robotics, and embedded systems; to develop increasingly comprehensive projects.
Skills that open up a world of possibilities
- XR technologies aren’t limited to entertainment. You’ll find them in Industry 4.0 (simulation, training, maintenance), digital health (rehabilitation, motor skill training), education, simulation, video games, applied research, and technological innovation.
- The skills you develop at XRLab (developing immersive environments, designing 3D interfaces, simulation, data visualization, sensor integration, and prototyping interactive experiences) enable you to thrive in a wide range of professional settings.
- There, you’ll learn to think about the system, the experience, and the user all at once. It’s a comprehensive approach to building your future in immersive technologies.
FAQ
Your questions, our answers
The XRLab allows you to design, develop, and test virtual, augmented, and mixed reality applications, from content creation through deployment and evaluation of the experience.
Unity is primarily used to develop applications and program interactions. Blender is used to create, animate, and optimize 3D models. Other tools are used for photogrammetry, motion capture, and data analysis.
A digital twin is a virtual representation of a real-world system. It can be used to simulate, visualize, test, or monitor an object, a space, a process, or an infrastructure.
No. The XRLab club is open to all 3iL students, regardless of your program of study. Outside of class hours, you can use the lab’s equipment to experiment, learn on your own, or develop your own projects. The goal is to enable everyone to build their skills by setting concrete challenges for themselves, either individually or as part of a team. This effort is recognized by the school as part of your e-learning hours.