NDORFINS

First Scene (Virtual Planet)
Second Scene (Atlantis)
VR View

Problem

According to a study reported in WHO, DEPRESSION is a common illness worldwide, with more than 264 million people affected. At its worst, depression can lead to suicide. Close to 800,000 people die due to suicide every year. Suicide is the second leading cause of death in 15-29-year-olds. Although there are known, effective treatments for mental disorders, between 76% and 85% of people in low and middle-income countries receive no treatment for their disorder.

Solution

We have accessed research articles that discuss the effect of music and light on depressive mood symptoms. We carefully analyzed ~ 30 articles, in which participants were administered music therapy in a setting of their choice. However, such music therapy is not common, due to lack of awareness and low mental health worker to population ratio.

We intend to begin solving this problem by using Virtual Reality to create such environments which can help the users to disconnect for a while from disturbing realities, allowing them to enter entirely new worlds. In the backdrop, we would be rigging binaural treatment (which is research-proven to relax various centers of the brain notorious for anxiety and related problems).

Architecture

To implement this solution on VR, we have mainly used Unity and Maya to create immersive environments with the aforementioned sounds. We have chosen Unity since it offers a Light-Weight Render Pipeline that can support quality graphics on commonplace Android devices. Our product supports a minimum Android API level 19 and is built for Google Cardboard as a minimum (furthering supporting Daydream, Oculus, HTC Vive, etc).

Challenges we faced

Very difficult to render high-quality non-low poly graphics on mobile GPU.
Reducing the size of the app (dividing the VR scenes into multiple modules)
Improve rendering, thus reducing flickering of the environment.

Future prospects

We have a long term aim where we intend to collaborate with hospitals, talk with the mental health division and help introduce economic VR therapy sessions to patients.
Making the solution available on more devices like Oculus, HTC Vive, etc.