Accelerating science through immersive virtual reality

ASU’s Digital Discovery Initiative is poised to revolutionize scientific research through immersive virtual reality, allowing scientists to explore, experiment and observe natural phenomena in ways that were previously unimaginable.

The initiative bridges the gap between technological advances like virtual reality, remote sensing and data visualization, and the need for expertise to reproduce natural environments in a virtual way.

Established in 2024, the Digital Discovery Initiative is a groundbreaking university effort to conceptualize, develop, implement and promote telescience — the operation of robots and sensor networks to gather data about distant objects or environments — and metascience — direct scientific research in the metaverse.

The initiative’s ambitious long-term goal is to move beyond visualization to pioneer direct, observational scientific research on high-resolution, digital replicates of natural environments — which they refer to as virtual environments.

The initiative focuses on developing highly highresolution digital twins (detailed, accurate and realistic digital models) of natural planetary landscapes, enhancing them with handheld or embedded biological, chemical or physical sensor data, then rendering the enhanced models as virtual environments.

A key element of the work is making these environments immersive so that researchers can work collaboratively in them as avatars. To achieve this, the initiative is leveraging the successes of ASU’s Dreamscape Learn in the realm of undergraduate education.

The ideas at the core of DDI have been well-received by the international science and engineering communities. So far, we’re only scratching the surface of the possible applications out there. I’m excited to see how the initiative evolves as we broaden collaborations across ASU and beyond.

— Kip Hodges , director, Digital Discovery Initiative and Foundation Professor, School of Earth and Space Exploration