Virtual Reality
Revives the Birzeit University Spirit
Explore the university’s sprawling campus using new technologies
I
magine being able to tour Birzeit University’s campus
from the comfort of your home, interacting with the
university’s faculties and numerous facilities along the
way. This is the vision of Associate Professor Dr. Ramzi
Hassan, who heads the Virtual Reality Laboratory (VR-Lab)
at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.
VR is a computer technology that projects images,
sounds, and haptic feedback to its users, allowing
them to experience natural wonders, historic sites, or
even futuristic simulations as if they were physically
present. These features make VR the perfect medium for
allowing a long-distance
tour of the university’s
sprawling campus and a
new experience of the
decades-old spirit of
Birzeit.
Hassan, previously
a lecturer and Chair
of the Department
of Architecture at
22
Al Ghadeer - Fall 2018
Birzeit University, founded the VR-Lab at the University
of Life Sciences and helped to found the VR-Lab at Birzeit
University. He recently spent three months of his sabbatical
at the university investigating the potential of using VR
as a tool for documenting heritage sites and as a new
apparatus for education.
VR’s role as educational and documentation tour was
demonstrated via the Hisham Palace VR Project. The effort
digitally reconstructed Hisham’s Palace, an archeological
site in Jericho, using data collection, 3D library creation,
and 3D modeling. This culminated in VR’s use as a
tool of communication between the various planners,
architects, archaeologists, and historians involved in
the project. It allowed for a different take on historical
and archaeological interpretations of the site and its
importance. Using the Hisham Palace VR project as a case
study, Hassan investigated the added value of using VR
as an “Edutainment” tool, or as entertainment with an
educational aim.
The Palace VR Project was a breakthrough not only
for its use of VR as a tool of historical documentation and
education, but also because of the adoption of VR that
resulted from it among Palestinians and regionally. There
are a lot of historical sites in Palestine that are, -due to the
nature of the Palestinian situation- inaccessible, under-
maintained, or both. Introducing VR to Palestine can
circumvent these difficulties, as the technology becomes
a medium for the preservation, documentation, and
representation of these cultural and historical sites and
historically significant landscapes.
A VR tour of Birzeit University, designed and
supervised by Hassan, is hosted on the university’s
website. The tour provides access and enables all to
visit, wherever they may be located around the
globe.
At the
FOREFRONT
of
ACADEMIC
RESEARCH
Birzeit University
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