Foundations of Virtual Reality

By Prof. M.Manivannan, Prof. Anna Lavalle, Prof. Steven Lavalle | IIT Madras, University of Oulu

Learners enrolled: 303

ABOUT THE COURSE:

Virtual reality (VR) is a powerful technology that promises to transform our lives. The purpose of this course is to provide you with a deep understanding of the fundamentals of VR. Because VR tricks our brains by presenting synthetic stimuli to our senses, it is extremely challenging to develop and analyze VR systems that are both effective and comfortable. To get a handle on these issues, this course will fuse together knowledge from a variety of relevant topics, including basics in human physiology, neuroscience, and perceptual psychology, and illustrate how they impact the development of VR hardware, software, and content.

INTENDED AUDIENCE: UG students of any Engineering Discipline, preferably third and final year students

PREREQUISITES: Engineering Mathematics

INDUSTRY SUPPORT: Accenture, Sony, Samsung, Qualcomm, TCS, Tata XLSI, and many more

Summary

Course Status :	Upcoming
Course Type :	Elective
Language for course content :	English
Duration :	12 weeks
Category :	Computer Science and Engineering Electrical, Electronics and Communications Engineering
Credit Points :	3
Level :	Undergraduate
Start Date :	21 Jul 2025
End Date :	10 Oct 2025
Enrollment Ends :	28 Jul 2025
Exam Registration Ends :	15 Aug 2025
Exam Date :	02 Nov 2025 IST
NCrF Level	4.5 — 8.0

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

Week 1: Introduction, Bird's-Eye View

Week 2: Geometry of Virtual Worlds

Week 3: Light and Optics

Week 4: The Physiology of Human Vision

Week 5: Visual Perception

Week 6: Tracking Systems

Week 7: Visual Rendering

Week 8: Audio Rendering

Week 9: Haptic Rendering

Week 10: VR Interfaces

Week 11: Advanced Topics

Week 12: Challenges in VR

Books and references

Virtual Reality, by Steven M. LaValle

SENSATION AND PERCEPTION, 10TH EDITION by E. Goldstein (Author), James Brockmole (Author)

Instructor bio

Prof. M.Manivannan

IIT Madras

Dr. M. Manivannan, Faculty at IIT Madras is renowned for his expertise in haptics, biomechanics, VR,and computer graphics, and has a rich background in teaching VR courses at the IIT Madras.

Prof. Anna Lavalle

University of Oulu

Dr. Anna LaValle, University of Oulu & IITM Visiting Faculty, is also an early Oculus founder,has extensive experience teaching large-scale courses on VR and other computer science topics at the University of Oulu, Finland, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.

Prof. Steven Lavalle

Dr. Steven LaValle, University of Oulu & IITM Visiting Faculty, is an early Oculus founder and a renowned researcher in Robotics, Motion planning and VR. Prof. Steven LaValle has also authored the textbook for the course

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.

The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).

Date and Time of Exams: November 02, 2025 Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.

Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.

The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.

Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 8 assignments out of the total 12 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100

Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

Please note that assignments encompass all types (including quizzes, programming tasks, and essay submissions) available in the specific week.

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.

Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IIT Madras .It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.

Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies will not be dispatched.

Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- NPTEL team