Getting Started with the Virtualis MotionVR Station
The MotionVR is the station students use when a project is about the person rather than the machine: balance, postural control, and how people respond to what they see in VR. It pairs a force plate that tilts and rises with a VR headset, so the floor and the scene can both move. Everyone who starts on it asks what to learn first, and the answer is the same for everyone, so it lives here.
The order below matters more than the volume. Work through it top to bottom. Steps 1 and 2 are prerequisites for putting anyone on the platform; steps 3 and 4 depend on what your project measures.
How to use this
- On this station, the risk is to the person on the platform, not to you at the keyboard. The plate moves under someone who is wearing a headset and cannot see the room. The operator is responsible for that person’s safety the whole time, which is why step 1 is the safety chapter and not the software.
- Never run a session alone. Someone stands next to the platform, close enough to steady the participant, every time the plate moves. That includes the session where you try it on yourself.
- Running anyone other than yourself is human-subjects research. It needs an approved IRB protocol before the first session, not after the pilot.
- This is a clinical device; our results are research data. The MotionVR is sold as a Class I medical device for trained clinicians. We use it to measure balance, and nothing we record is a diagnosis. Do not tell a participant what their scores mean for their health.
- You can practice on the station while you work through the material. If you need access for that, ask me and I will arrange it — time on the platform is arranged through me, not self-served.
- Everything below is free to read on the maker’s support site.
1. Safety and system operation
Start here regardless of what your project is about. This is the required first step.
| Resource | What it is | Why bother |
|---|---|---|
| MotionVR User Manual (PDF) | Virtualis’s 16-page manual for the platform, version 3.0 | Safety railing, emergency stop, power-up order, foot placement, and platform settings |
| Preparing for testing and participant set-up | Interacoustics video guide | What a correct set-up looks like, before you do one yourself |
The manual is short; read all of it. Four things in it you must be able to do without looking:
- Power order. Nobody stands on the platform while the system turns on or off. The power box goes on before the computer; to shut down, quit the software, shut down the computer, and only then turn off the power box.
- Safety railing. It stays closed and set to the participant’s height for every session, moving or not. The buttons on the front set it to 1.00, 1.15, 1.25, or 1.40 m, and S stops it.
- Emergency stop. The red button sits on the front under the railing. Pressing it freezes the plate where it is; a quarter turn clockwise releases it. After an emergency stop, secure the participant before you touch the computer, because closing or switching the software can send the plate back to its default position.
- Foot placement. Feet go on the marked lines that match the participant’s height (S, M, or L), in socks, never shoes. Every standardized test assumes this position.
2. The Virtualis software
Read this after step 1, at the station. Everything runs from one application, the Patient Manager: participant records, the test and training modules, and the reports.
| Resource | What it is | Why bother |
|---|---|---|
| Patient Manager User Manual (PDF) | The 60-page manual for the software | Participant records, sessions, protocols, reports, and data export |
| How to navigate the software modules | Interacoustics quick guide | Finding and launching a module |
| How to create a protocol | Interacoustics quick guide | Fixing a sequence of modules so every participant gets the same session |
| How to perform a room setup | Interacoustics quick guide for SteamVR | Headset tracking and floor height, done at the start of each day |
| Setting up the VR headset and accessories | Interacoustics video guide | Fitting the headset, controllers, and trackers on a participant |
The room setup is the step people skip and then lose a session to. Interacoustics wrote it for the HTC VIVE Pro 2; the SteamVR steps are the same for our tethered headset. On the MotionVR, the floor is calibrated at −12 cm, because the plate rises 12 cm whenever a module starts. Redo the room setup each day you use the station, after any power cut, and whenever the base stations have moved.
For a study, build a protocol rather than launching modules by hand. A protocol is how you make sure the tenth participant gets exactly the session the first one did.
3. The standard balance assessments
Relevant if your project uses the computerized dynamic posturography tests. Most projects on this station do, at least as a baseline.
| Resource | What it is | Why bother |
|---|---|---|
| Sensory Organization Test (SOT) | Interacoustics video guide | The six sensory conditions, and how to run and watch them |
| Limits of Stability (LoS) | Interacoustics video guide | How far a person can lean in each direction without stepping |
| Adaptation Test (ADT) | Interacoustics video guide | How a person adapts to the same sudden plate tilt repeated several times |
| Motor Control Test (MCT) | Interacoustics video guide | Reactions to small, medium, and large backward and forward plate movements; needs the MotionVR+ version |
| Module tutorials | One PDF per module, from Interacoustics | Weight Distribution, Dynamic Analysis, LOS Rehab, and the VR training modules |
Watch the video for a test before you run it, then run it on yourself, with a spotter, before you run it on anyone else. Keep the default settings unless your protocol says otherwise; the SOT, for example, defaults to at least two trials of each condition, and changing that makes your results hard to compare with anyone else’s.
4. Background and research data
Relevant once you are designing a study rather than learning the station.
| Resource | What it is | Why bother |
|---|---|---|
| Virtualis clinical education, Part 1 | Interacoustics course | How balance control works, how VR fits in, and the theory behind the standard assessments |
| Virtualis clinical education, Part 2 | Interacoustics course | The second half of the same two-part course |
| How to create a report | Interacoustics quick guide | Viewing results across sessions and exporting them |
The reports the software prints are written for clinicians. For analysis you want the numbers. The Patient Manager exports several sessions of one module to CSV from the report’s Edition menu (section 5.11 of its manual). For signal-level data, the platform’s advanced settings can record raw and smoothed center-of-pressure data, plus the plate’s pitch and height, to a folder you choose (section 10.3 of the MotionVR manual). Decide which one your analysis needs before the first participant, not after the last.
What comes next
Once you have worked through the steps relevant to your project, come see me and we will scope a first session on the station. Bring a specific question you want to measure and your IRB status; “learn the platform” is not a study and you have already done it by this point.