Developing Virtual Reality Applications

Dr. Alan B. Craig is an independent consultant in Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Visualization, and High Performance Computing. Prior to this role, he contributed much to these fields during his thirty-year career at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) as a Research Scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and as Senior Associate Director for Human-Computer Interaction at the Institute for Computing in Humanities, Arts, and Social Science (I-CHASS). Among his other consulting roles, he is currently engaged with the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE).

Dr. Craig has been called upon to speak as an expert in VR and AR at countless worldwide events and continues to speak at various venues. He has taught classes related to VR and AR online as well as onsite at universities, companies, and high school campuses. Dr. Craig has worked with government and industry entities regarding VR and AR applications. He has been interviewed by numerous publications, television, and news outlets.

In addition to Understanding Virtual Reality (with William R. Sherman) he also authored Developing Virtual Reality Applications (with William R. Sherman and Jeffrey D. Will) and Understanding Augmented Reality. Additionally, he has written multiple book chapters and articles. He has developed many virtual reality and augmented reality applications in content areas ranging from archaeology to zoology. He also teaches and advises on related topics. His primary focus has been on the use of virtual reality and augmented reality in educational applications and his work centers on the continuum between the physical and the digital.
He holds three patents. Dr. Jeff Will is an Associate Professor at Valparaiso University. He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2002, he was named the Fredrick F. Jenny Professor of Emerging Technology in Engineering. He established the college's Scientific Visualization Laboratory, where he has directed students in major research projects and taught VR technology and programming courses to undergraduates as well as aided faculty from other disciplines to integrate VR into their curricula.