U of I VTD department creates virtual solutions for real companies

While on a Zoom call during summer 2025, virtual technology and design (VTD) senior Porter Howard was driving back to Moscow from a meeting in Boise, VTD graduate Sydney Tverdy ’24 was working on the U of I campus and Jean-Marc Gauthier, director of VTD and VRLab for the College of Art and Architecture, was in Pullman, Washington, conducting LIDAR scans of local topography.

The irony was not lost on Howard that they were working virtually while creating a virtual world for the USDA Forest Service.

“It kind of makes sense, right?” Howard said. “That’s what the tool is for. We use it, too.”

U of I’s VTD VRLab is developing large-scale virtual projects for the Forest Service and Micron, a major semiconductor technology company headquartered in Boise, giving students direct experience in real-world work for significant Idaho clients.

“I think there’s this idea out there that work at the university level has drifted away from industry,” said Tim Yurkiewicz, Forest Service program manager. “But these projects allow students to work with clients, understand budgets and timelines, while learning about the bigger picture. It’s a real job they can do while still in college.”

Full immersion

Employers like Micron are always on the lookout for new talent. They need to be able to attract potential employees by connecting with them in a way that will provide an unforgettable experience.

Madelyn Stoneman ’24 helped facilitate that experience. The VTD VRLab team created a tool that provides a real-life Micron experience through a VR headset. She designed a virtual layout of a Micron fabrication facility, where semiconductors are manufactured, that can be accessed on the Micron Educator Hub website.  

VTD students are also working with Micron to create a computer-based version of the VR experience to ensure it is accessible to a wide range of learners and institutions who may not have access to virtual reality hardware.

Stoneman helped test the virtual tool at several Idaho career and technical fairs, including Hackfort in Boise, where local high school students used VR headsets to enter the virtual Micron facility and ask questions about careers at the company.

“Once in the meeting space, participants can choose between two immersive modules,” Stoneman said.  

The DRAM memory experience puts participants at the nanometer scale inside a semiconductor memory array, allowing them to see how data is stored within DRAM memory cells. The second module introduces learners to the equipment technician role, guiding them through how to dress before entering a state-of-the-art cleanroom and highlighting key responsibilities and tasks performed in Micron’s fabrication environment.

Virtual Micron tours offer two main advantages for students interested in learning more about the company. First, the virtual space may feel familiar and comfortable to them because it was built with gaming software and has a feel many tech-savvy students already know. Second, the virtual space can highlight parts of the company experience that aren’t accessible on a live tour.

“The cleanroom where you have to use special suits, and the floor has small filtering holes in it to keep the environment dust free,” Tverdy said. “It’s not really feasible to give tours through there, but we’ve created that room virtually where they can get that experience. We’ve even got the holes in the virtual floor.”

According to Tverdy, experiencing the Micron virtual tour through a headset gives students an impression that a website can’t match.

“I used a VR headset a lot for virtual meetings during COVID-19,” she said. “I found it helped me concentrate more, and I had less distraction. I think, because you are immersed in that world, it’s a much more memorable experience for the user.”

Fire prep

Firefighting techniques are usually perfected in the field. Yurkiewicz thinks the project with U of I’s VTD VRLab can change that.

Over the past year, Yurkiewicz and the VTD team have been building virtual forests with different kinds of trees, brush and terrain. It’s the foundation for a tool he envisions will give firefighters new ways to train for wildfires that won’t require moving multiple firefighters to and from different locations.

“We’re creating different environments,” he said. “Different trees, different vegetation structure, what kind of canopy you have, and how those environments might react to fire. And because it’s virtual, it takes travel out of the equation. You could have someone from Southern California learning about the environment in Southern Florida.”

Next, the team will introduce fire to the virtual forests, turning the virtual classroom into a virtual training session.

“Introducing fire to the simulation is one of the biggest challenges,” Howard said. "Getting it to burn in a way that looks natural is tricky. A lot of trees burn from the top down instead of coming up from brush, so getting all of those aspects into a digital space requires a lot of research.”

As the project develops, Yurkiewicz expects the tool will help users understand different forest settings and learn how to fight fires more effectively in those environments.  

“We want to put our personnel in situations where they can understand these environments, learn about fire patterns and feel OK about making mistakes because you aren’t losing a structure like in a prescribed burn,” he said. “We think using virtual reality for knowledge and skill transfer and getting our folks more comfortable doing things in a simulated environment will be very beneficial for the wildland fire community.”