| From June
1997-May 1998
I was the project manager for the development of "Virtual Vietnam", a
virtual
reality simulation of Vietnam War combat. The application was
created
to treat veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, a
debilitating
psychological condition. The system was used extensively by
psychotherapists
at the Atlanta Veterans Administration hospital. Two environments
were developed. One environment allows a user to wear a virtual
reality
helmet and ride a combat helicopter. In this scenario, the
user would sit in a subwoofer equipped chair to simulate the vibrations
experienced in flight. In a second scenario, users would stand
and
utilize a joystick to walk through a hostile helicopter landing
zone.
Philip Hebert was
the project's
lead programmer. Upon completion of the project, Philip
joined
Red
Storm Entertainment where he has worked on the hit "Rainbow Six"
series
of tactical combat games. In 1998, Dave Gotz programmed a number
of additional features based on user feedback. The project was
led
by Dr. Larry Hodges, director of the Virtual Environments Group at the Georgia
Tech Graphics, Visualization, and Usability Center.
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