EON Reality supports BBU with immersive EON Icube environment for virtual reality therapy project

Jan 9 2010

EON Reality, the world's leading interactive 3D software provider, supports the Babes-Bolyai University (BBU), in Cluj-Napoca, Romania with an immersive EON Icube environment for a virtual reality therapy project. Babes-Bolyai University is the largest university in Romania, one of the most influential in Eastern and Central Europe, and it was ranked on the first place in research among the Romanian Universities in 2009 by the National Council for Scientific Research in Higher Education.

An advanced research platform developed at the Babes-Bolyai University, Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy in Romania, is innovating psychotherapy with virtual reality technology. The PsyTech-MATRIX Platform is the first one in Romania and one of the most advanced systems in the world, building on "state of the art technology" and combining significant psychotherapeutic methods.

Professor Daniel David, a specialist on virtual reality therapy at the BBU, is the director of the ambitious "Star-Gate Psy" project. He has been conducting treatment and research for various symptoms such as anxiety, phobias, depression, and ADHD. "Virtual reality therapy has a lot of advantages in respect to control, safety, precise measurements, time reducing, and sometimes even cost-effectiveness, compared to traditional psychotherapy methods. Virtual techniques can be incorporated in any know form of psychotherapy, from cognitive-behavioral to psychodynamic and humanistic-existential," said Daniel David.

"An immersive virtual reality environment is as close as it can be to a real environment. It allows us to get accurate results and control the information that the client receives in a natural setting. In a marginal performance, this type of treatment is very helpful as it facilitates us to look into more complex processes, integration and understanding of psychotherapy processes. Moreover, target behaviors and cognitions will rise in virtual environments, and we can work on that," stated David Opris, one of the research team members.

A full installation of the Icube interactive 3D system, supplied by EON Reality, has taken place in the new building called AVALON (Advanced Virtual Application Laboratories of Napocensis), as a part of the "Star-Gate Psy" project, based on a grant from the Romanian National Authority for Research Government.