In the era of Big Data, we struggle to comprehend the scope of the statistics we have. We know thousands of people are killed by drunk driving, but unless someone is in that situation it’s impossible to really understand the psychological impact.
Our SDHacks project is the solution to put a human experience to the numbers.
We’ve created a simulation where the viewer is literally experiencing drunk driving, vision blurred by intoxication, alcohol in hand. Using the full immersion the HTC Vive offers, viewers can watch the consequences of reckless actions, eventually ending up in a jail cell surrounded by statistics of drunk driving fatalities.
Coding for Vive was challenging as it’s so new, especially as the camerawork of driving an erratic car required careful camera positioning. Most of our team was new to working in Unity as well, but we quickly adapted to the robust engine.
We are most proud of how we were able to put so many unconnected elements together in under a day and to have them fit nearly seamlessly. We’ve learned how to integrate team member’s codes and unique skills together to make one cohesive project.
We plan to continue developing it, focusing on heightening the realism of the experience and offering different levels of intoxication in the simulation.
Our simulation is a first step in the intermingling of VR and Data Visualization, having the experience give weight to the data and the data influencing the experience.
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