Specialized Radiological Assets for Navigable Two-dimensional and Three-dimensional Virtual and Augmented Reality

Virtual reality holds promise as a tool for recruiting new individuals into the health physics profession and for providing realistic experiences for both junior and senior radiation protection professionals. Virtual environments are constructed using models of objects, also known as assets. This work presents a collection of radiological assets unavailable elsewhere, which could be immediately applied in fully immersive three-dimensional environments as well as used for more standard two-dimensional applications. Radioactive sources, shields, nuclear electronics, and radiation detectors are included. Strategies for producing realistic but performance-optimized assets are included. A fully immersive virtual reality game about radiation protection incorporating the assets presented in this paper is currently being designed by the authors to interest students in nuclear science and engineering at high schools and colleges. The resulting realistic assets are further available upon request to any interested individuals for incorporation into not-for-profit outreach or professional-level training using virtual reality experiences.