Our new Immersive Development Lab (ID Lab), located on the 5th floor of the Copland Building at our Cavendish Campus, provides a future-focused learning environment that inspires and prepares students for creative, flexible development.
Designed by university staff and industry experts, the lab features an interconnected suite of six professional systems, all accessible and controllable from any PC or laptop port within the space. This setup encourages you to experiment with innovative combinations of hardware and software to create new forms of immersive experiences.
Advanced immersive technologies
At the heart of the lab is a room-sized LED wall, enabling virtual production and immersive application development within fully interactive environments. You can integrate your projects with a virtual camera rig for mixed reality production, or use full room, markerless motion tracking for natural gesture input.
For more detailed work, the lab also provides professional marker-based motion capture for up to four performers, including hands, fingers, and facial expressions.
Immersive sound design is supported by a 20+ speaker 360° audio system driven by custom spatial audio software.
The ID Lab offers:
- Immersive LED Wall
- Virtual Camera Rig
- Permanent VR stations
- Portable VR headsets
- High-resolution 360° cameras
- 3D scanning equipment
- 360 Spatial Audio
- Markered and Markerless Motion Capture
- Generative AI software models locally hosted, allowing students to integrate up-to-date AI-driven content and code into their immersive projects
The new ID Lab allows students to surround themselves with a complete ecosystem of innovative hardware, software, and creative techniques. It gives them a fantastic opportunity to produce work of the highest quality, opening new possibilities for development and creative expression.
— Jeff Ferguson, Senior Lecturer and Director of Westminster’s Immersive Development Lab
Learning and research opportunities
Creative Computing, Computer Games Development, Computer Science, and Software Engineering students can engage with the lab through specialised modules in virtual reality and motion capture or by attending onboarding sessions to begin their own projects.
The ID Lab is a technician-supported space. For more information and to book, email Stefan Board Smith or Jeff Ferguson.