National XR Day 2025

It is difficult to perform research in complex, urban environments such as a shopping street, because they cannot be controlled. But in order for research results to be valid, experiments must be done in real-world scenarios. To solve this challenge, a virtual world is needed.

In this workshop we will explore the technical challenges of building a large scale, Dutch urban virtual urban environment in Unity, which currently does not exist. We will discuss our approach to making development efficient through scalable modularity, building custom editor tools, populating the environment with virtual humans, and more.

This workshop is hosted by the Wander XR Experience Lab at Wageningen University & Research and will focus on one of our current projects: the Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) Food Environment.

We will begin with a brief introduction to the context and background of the project, explaining the motivation behind creating a virtual shopping street.

Following this, we will dive into the technical challenges encountered during development. Through a step-by-step breakdown, we will showcase the technical and artistic decisions we made to overcome these challenges.

This session is ideal for developers, researchers, and designers interested in building large-scale virtual environments, procedural content generation, and interactive urban simulations. Attendees will gain insights into practical solutions for optimizing workflows, enhancing interactivity, and managing complexity when building VR environments.