Inspire@PolyU vs ViSymulation Pro

PolyU has launched a university-wide mentorship programme, namely the “INSPIRE” Mentorship Programme, with an aim of enhancing our students’ holistic education experience, intellectual growth, academic enhancement, and career development through a support network of role models and prominent leaders from the PolyU community. To further facilitate the interaction between mentors and mentees regardless of time, place, and pandemic constraint, a mobile application has been developed for mentors and mentees to interact and share insights in personal and career development.

"ViSymulation Pro" is an augmented reality (AR) mobile application, developed by the Department of Ophthalmology, School of Clinical Medicine of the University of Hong Kong. It aims to educate users on the visual symptoms of common vision problems. Users could gain a first-person experience of the impaired vision and the corresponding difficulties encountered by the visually impaired persons (VIPs). As a result, the public awareness of vision protection is raised while the empathetic attitude towards the visually-impaired people are developed among the community. "ViSymulation Pro" provides 2 modes: 1. "Information About Vision Problems" - For individual users - Discover the aetiology, signs and visual symptoms of vision problems - Experience visual symptoms of vision problems through the 1-minute AR simulation 2. "Create/Join Room" - For groups and events - Remote-control function: control of multiple smartphones to display desired visual symptoms to realize group-based teaching This mobile app can simulate the following vision problems with three stages of progression (mild, moderate, and severe) or the subtypes: - Diabetic Retinopathy - Cataract - Glaucoma - Age-related macular degeneration - Retinitis Pigmentosa - Retinal Detachment - Myopia - Hyperopia - Presbyopia - Astigmatism - Color Blindness (Protanopia, Tritanopia, Deuteranopia, Monochromacy) - Visual Pathway Lesions (Left Homonymous Hemianopia, Left Homonymous Superior Quadrantanopia, Left Homonymous Inferior Quadrantanopia)