Application Of Virtual Reality Technology In Teaching Case Of Sanitary Landfill

The construction of new engineering fields poses new requirements and challenges for the training of environmental engineering professionals.However,as a critical component of professional training,practical teaching lacks sufficient interaction between students and teachers,and there are many problems such as limited opportunities to visit typical engineering projects due to venue conditions,which result in poor teaching effectiveness.Sanitary landfills are the final disposal method for solid waste,but they present problems such as the concealment of main structures by waste heaps and the inability to demonstrate processes at the same time.To ensure the successful implementation of practical teaching in environmental engineering,this study utilizes virtual reality(VR)technology to develop a virtual reality teaching software for sanitary landfills to assist with practical teaching.Unlike sewage and exhaust treatment facilities,it is more difficult to restore sanitary landfills:1)their natural terrain,which is uneven and covers a large area,resulting in content gaps as the operational facilities and scenes are not proportional;2)their main structures are vertical,especially the thickness of the impermeable materials in the impermeable structures is disproportionate,making them difficult to observe;3)The processing methods at different stages of the landfill in the same spatial location are different,resulting in significant changes in the scene and difficulties in content design.This study selected the open-source Blender software as the modeling software to create 3D models,bridged Rizom UV to assist in processing model UV,and baked material ID and normal maps.Quixel Mixer was used to customize complex textures and Bridge was used to bridge texture resources.The UE4 game engine was chosen as the VR development software to complete tasks such as environment construction,collision body processing,material production,lighting construction and interaction settings,and software packaging output.This study developed a virtual reality teaching software for a sanitary landfill site,which includes garbage classification,weighing on the scale,landfill operations,covering system,green restoration,and anti-seepage treatment.The software enables commonly used functions such as full-scene roaming and bird’s-eye view observation,process understanding,model grabbing,and structure display.For the design of large-scale natural terrain,this study has organized two methods:automatic generation of height maps and manual drawing.The height map method generates terrain efficiently,and the level of detail is closely related to the density of the height map.However,the difficulty lies in obtaining and generating height map information.Although the manual drawing method has low production efficiency,it has high operation freedom and adaptability.The large map also brings the problem of regular texture re-laying.This study has used pixel depth method,vector noise method,and macroscopic change method to improve this problem.Through the performance comparison of the three methods,the pixel depth method and macroscopic change method are selected to solve this problem in combination.In addition,an interactive software for garbage classification was designed to increase the fun of the experience.This study conducted a questionnaire survey on the VR teaching situation of the software developed.The survey results show that the VR teaching software for a sanitary landfill site can supplement the content that cannot be covered in practical teaching,improve students’learning enthusiasm,and achieve ideal teaching effects.