Welcome to the Archives of the VRL !

The University of Michigan Virtual Reality Laboratory (VRL) at the College of Engineering was founded in 1993 and closed its doors in 2008 with the retirement of its founder and director Klaus-Peter Beier. During its 15 years of operation, the Lab was involved in research and development projects that explored innovative applications of immersive and non-immersive virtual environments, some of them being preserved in this Archive for interested audiences.

Initially, research at the VRL focused on industrial applications like virtual prototyping of engineering designs (especially in the automotive and marine industry), the simulation of manufacturing processes, and related engineering tasks. Additional activities included the use of virtual reality in accident simulations, medicine, architecture, archeology, education, and other areas. As an interdisciplinary facility, the VRL collaborated with many units within the university and served the outside community.

Through a combined directorship, the VRL cooperated closely with the University of Michigan 3D Lab in the Duderstadt Center (former Media Union). The UM 3D Lab continues with some of the work previously conducted by the VRL. Visit the Web site of the UM 3D Lab and check on the latest developments.
To view the three-dimensional VRML 2.0 models develpoped by the VRL in the past, we recommend the CosmoPlayer plug-in for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Mozilla, and other Web browsers. The CosmoPlayer can be downloaded from this NIST Web site, from karmanaut, or from other places. Please refer to these latest Download and Install Instructions from NIST.
VRL Archive:
Archive of the Virtual Reality Course Eng 477:
Other Links:

NOTE: The links on the following two pages are no longer maintained and may be out of date.
Number of home page hits:
Last Update: November 18, 2008, kpb
URL: http://www-VRL.umich.edu
Copyright 1996-2008 ©, the Regents of the University of Michigan