IRVINE, Calif., October 1, 2009 – EON Reality, the world’s leading interactive 3D software provider, is pleased to announce that undergraduate and graduate students, along with their faculty mentors, in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Marquette University have created content, called Vascular Voyage, using EON’s software tools as part of ongoing cardiovascular disease research.

Marly Bergerud, VP, Education Development, EON Reality, indicates, “EON is also being used to modify this content to convey and teach concepts rooted in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines as part of a biomedical engineering education.” “Basic proficiency with STEM principles is a nationwide thrust required for personal or professional success and to meet the demand for STEM-related careers in the U.S. and global workforce,” says John LaDisa, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering.

“Vascular Voyage is made possible through collaboration between the Department of Biomedical Engineering in Marquette University’s College of Engineering, Discovery World at Pier Wisconsin, and the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin,” LaDisa points out. “The goal of Vascular Voyage is to enhance the understanding and confidence of students in grades 7-9 with principles used in STEM-related disciplines by intrinsically linking their personal interests in technology and computing with the intrigue of exploring the human body. Students interact with immersive 3D multimedia content and interactive demonstration stations where the human circulatory system is experienced under normal, diseased and treatment conditions, as a means of illustrating the importance of STEM principles, and assessment and evaluation is performed using impact-based indicators and measurement metrics rooted in academic standards.”

“Using EON is desirable,” says LaDisa, “since the Human Interactive Virtual Education (HIVE) system within Discovery World at Pier Wisconsin is currently running this software and constant accessibility to the HIVE by their patrons requires the use of software that is robust and stable. Based on experience with other virtual reality systems, EON provides a more user friendly environment for developing virtual reality content. Using built-in EON features and several custom scripts, we were able to create an immersive simulation that displays blood flow through the cardio vascular system without any low-level programming experience. More importantly, the high-level functionality of EON allowed us to create our content in a relatively short period of time.”

For further information about EON Reality, visit www.eonreality.com.