Mr. Garcia is the Director of Technology for Collaborative Spaces at Old Dominion University’s Virginia Modeling Analysis and Simulation Center. Mr. Garcia’s experience is in Virtual and Augmented Environments, integrating state of the art visualization systems with modeling and simulation applications, and currently actively involved in how to enable such technologies for being more inclusive of a larger user base. Mr. Garcia received his Master’s in Architecture from University of Houston in 1997. Mr. Garcia’s expertise includes the use of large-scale visual simulation display systems, VR, AR, Mixed Reality, the use of tracking devices, 3D scanning devices, laser cutting, CNC machining and rapid prototyping (3D printing) for use in research, training and education.
Mr. Garcia has more than 20 years’ experience developing highly interactive Virtual Environments for training. He has been involved in a variety of research projects funded by NASA, NSF, ONR, AHRQ and private industry. Before joining Old Dominion University, Mr. Garcia spent 5 years as a Researcher at the University of Houston affiliated with the Virtual Environments Technology Laboratory working on several NASA projects for Astronaut training as well as NSF funded research for using Virtual Reality as a teaching tool. While working on these past research projects, Mr. Garcia worked on modeling the Virtual Environments as well as managed teams of developers to design the game play of all these simulations, to achieve the proposed training goals. He has also successfully managed projects, collaborated with other researchers and help produce peer-reviewed publications on each of the projects. Mr. Garcia’s research interests are in the application of VR and AR technologies for Inclusive Design, Training, Education and Scientific Visualization.
M.A. in Architecture, 1997
University of Houston, Houston, TX
B.A. in Architecture, 1994
Universidad Regiomontana, Monterrey, MX
VMASC, Simulation Experience and Analysis (SEA) Lab Manager & Lead Project Scientist
Suffolk, VA
2014 – Present
VMASC, Visualization Lab Manager & Senior Project Scientist
Suffolk, VA
2002 – 2014
VMASC, Project Scientist
Suffolk, VA
2000 – 2002
University of Houston; Virtual Environments Technology Laboratory, Researcher
Houston, TX
1997 – 2000
University of Houston; Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture, Guest Lecturer
Houston, TX
1997 – 1999
A 3D Interactive Simulation. Developed a 3D interactive simulation for nursing students and professional nurses to train and practice pain assessment and management procedures. In the simulation environment, the trainees interact with three emotionally expressive animated patients. The three patients vary in their ethnicity, age, and emotion intensity.
This project consisted in the development of a prototype real-time, dynamic ultrasound simulator training tool specific for cardiac interrogation. The tool was developed to accommodate a dedicated teaching component that is extendable with additional anatomical imagery and teaching materials to include instructor observation capability.
Standardized patients (SPs), individuals who realistically portray patients, are widely used in medical education to teach and assess communication skills, eliciting a history, performing a physical exam, and other important clinical skills. One limitation is that each SP can only portray a limited set of physical symptoms. Finding SPs with the abnormalities students need to encounter is typically not feasible. This project augments the SP by permitting the learner to hear simulated abnormal heart and lung sounds in a normal SP.
The Virtual Operating Room (VOR) is a platform that integrates procedural medical simulators into a coherent, context-relevant fully immersive virtual environment simulating an operating room. Trainees interact with a surgical team comprised of real and/or virtual team members (e.g., attending surgeon, anesthesiologist, scrub technician, and circulating nurse). All characters are defined by their procedural knowledge and personality. The interface capitalizes on natural interactions and is largely driven by voice recognition and text-to-speech software. A custom designed controller manages the VOR functionality, rendering platform, speech recognition, and text-to-speech generation modules. The VOR allows instructors and researchers to simulate the physical and social context in which surgical procedures are performed. The VOR can be used to train surgical teams and address issues in judgment, decision making, team dynamics, and interpersonal skills. Most importantly, the VOR allows medical teams to train the way they operate without putting patients at risk.
A prototype board was developed, that captures discrete-event simulation’s blocks like arrivals, queues, processes and resources. The board applies the concept of gamification to engage users. The board is simple to replicate and can be created with accessible material or 3D printing capabilities. Further, we propose the board be used simultaneously with software applications to facilitate the transition from analogue to digital tools. Future work investigates 1) extended simulation, 2) universal access to simulation and 3) insight generation.
Ren, Shuo, Frederic D. McKenzie, Sushil K. Chaturvedi, Ramamurthy Prabhakaran, Jaewan Yoon, Petros J. Katsioloudis, and Hector Garcia. “Design and comparison of immersive interactive learning and instructional techniques for 3d virtual laboratories.” Presence 24, no. 2 (2015): 93-112.
Sokolowski, John A., Hector M. Garcia, William Richards, and Catherine M. Banks. “Developing a low-cost multi-modal simulator for ultrasonography training.” In Proceedings of the Conference on Summer Computer Simulation, pp. 1-5. Society for Computer Simulation International, 2015.
Romero, E.J., Watson, G.S., Papelis, Y. & Garcia, H. (2014). Nursing pain assessment & management: A 3D interactive simulation. International Journal of Designs for Learning, 5(1), pp. 43-56.
Scerbo, M.W., Croll, M.M., Garcia, H.M., Stefanidis, D., Britt, R. C., Davis, S. S. (Jan. 2013). A spatial task for measuring laparoscopic mental workload. The 13th International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare, Orlando, FL.
Scerbo, M. W., Garcia, H. M., Belfore II, L. A., Weireter Jr, L.J., Rushing, G D., Jackson, M. W., Baydogan, E., Nalu, A., & Newlin, E. T. (2009). A virtual operating room for surgical teams. The 9th International Meeting on Simulation in Healthcare. Orlando, FL.
K. J. Rechowicz, H. Garcia (2016). Process driven framework for augmented reality in a manufacturing environment.Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Modeling and Applied Simulation: 65-72.
Sokolowski, John A., and Hector M. Garcia. “The Significance of Modeling and Visualization.” The Digital Patient: Advancing Healthcare, Research, and Education (2015): 33-48.
Frederic D. McKenzie, H. M. Garcia, Reynel J. Castelino, Heidi Plebani, Thomas W. Hubbard, John A. Ullian, Gayle A. Gliva. “Augmented Standardized Patients Now Virtually a Reality”Poster of the ISMAR 2004 conference, Nov. 2 – 5, 2004 in Arlington, VA
