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Virtual reality tools to make abstract concepts tangible

Mary Northum • September 30, 2025

Virtual Reality

VR and mixed reality let you walk through what used to live only in slides—room setup, positioning flow, the actual spatial sweep from patient to tube to bucky. Short sessions (ten minutes or less) with a single clear outcome work best; always offer a non-VR path so no one's locked out.

medspace.XR radiography VR suite for positioning & imaging

Website: medspace.XR

medspace.XR gives you a virtual X-ray room—tube, collimator, table, bucky, control panel, monitor—where students position patients, set collimation, pick exposures, and watch the result. You build standard setups that match your department's real workflow, save them as protocols, then let learners either aim for protocol or wander off-script to test what happens. Skeleton overlays, collimator tape measures, and multiple camera angles help them check landmarks and alignment. Video walkthroughs cover equipment, navigation, patient entry, and full exam sequences (PA scaphoid, for instance), so onboarding new faculty goes fast.

Trade-offs: Institutional licensing and VR hardware logistics require program-level buy-in. That investment buys radiography-specific tasks, repeatable reps, and instructor-controlled protocols—keep sessions brief and scripted to make headset time count.

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Virtual Medical Coaching (Radiography VR) positioning & exposure practice

Website: Virtual Medical Coaching

Virtual Medical Coaching runs radiography modules where students position, choose technique, and check safety in a simulated room. Feedback on centering, collimation, and factors comes instantly—good for deliberate practice and fixing gaps. Instructor dashboards handle assignments and progress tracking; licensing is institutional, with demos available. VMC says their simulation measurably improves first-year clinical assessment, especially positioning and exposure selection.

For LMRT: pair a VMC scenario with a quick "why" talk and a checklist, then follow up with image critique in class. If you've got a real-world story that ties to the scenario, tell it—those stick.

Trade-offs: VR hardware and institutional budget are the real barriers here. If you can clear them, the radiography-specific tasks and instant feedback justify the cost—supervise new users in short sessions until they're comfortable with the interface.

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GIGXR (HoloPatient / HoloHuman) mixed-reality clinical & anatomy learning

Website: GigXR, HoloPatient

GIGXR puts holograms—patients, organ systems—into your real room via head-mounted displays or select mobile devices. HoloPatient runs clinical scenarios; HoloHuman layers anatomy. Multiple learners gather around the same hologram, talking through positioning, safety steps, SBAR communication. Because mixed reality keeps the real environment visible, students see spatial relationships—tube, bucky, patient, barriers—while they discuss. Educators get session control and sequencing tools built in.

Trade-offs: Licensing is institutional and contact-for-quote—confirm pricing before recommending to budget-conscious programs. Lower fidelity than full clinical sims, so use GIGXR for concepts and group conversation, not hands-on procedure practice.

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3D Organon VR anatomy with labels, layers, and pathologies

Website: 3D Organon

3D Organon shows anatomy with labels, layers, motion—useful for linking positioning landmarks to what's underneath. Sessions can be instructor-guided or self-paced; many programs run it on standalone headsets for quick anatomy refreshers.

For LMRT: try this sequence—landmark review in Organon, positioning practice (lab or VR), then a low-stakes quiz. Licensing ranges from individual to institutional; manuals and setup guides are available.

Trade-offs: Not radiography-specific—the anatomy is excellent but the transfer to positioning and projection work doesn't happen on its own. Pair with radiography tasks and explicit transfer checks, or students may leave with strong anatomy recall and no clearer sense of how to center.

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SimX multi-user clinical scenarios in VR

Website: SimX, SimX Marketplace (case library)

SimX runs team-based VR cases where learners assess, communicate, and act together—useful when you want to stress patient interaction, safety, and workflow. The library covers emergencies and routine care; instructors watch decisions unfold and debrief with built-in reports and logs. Licensing is institutional; shared headsets in a lab keep costs manageable.

For LMRT: pick a case that emphasizes radiation safety and communication, then add a short rubric for SBAR and positioning decisions.

Trade-offs: Needs VR gear, facilitator time, and a clear session plan—without those, the immersion doesn't pay off. Keep sessions short with defined roles, and build the debrief in before you schedule the first run.

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