Application of Web-based Immersive Virtual

Reality in Mathematics Education

Michal Takac
Institute of Control and Informatization of Production
Processes, BERG Faculty, Technical University of Košice
Němcovej 3, 042 00 Košice, Slovakia
[email protected]

Abstract—This paper deals with design and implementation of playgrounds, with such degree of interactivity that goes far
web-based, virtual reality (WebVR) application MathworldVR beyond what is possible in reality [5]. It is well suited to
for teaching higher mathematics concepts that require spatial the dynamically changing environment caused by interactive
abilities. It describes the use of methods and approaches of instru-
mental interaction within VR through direct visual manipulation operations [6]. The 3D element, the vividness and the playful
of input variables of parametrized functions, which shortens the nature of the virtual world then makes the learning process
time needed for students to understand the underlying principles easier [7]. If using VR as a tool for mathematics education, it
of a given mathematical theory. Advantages, disadvantages and ideally offers an added benefit to learning in a wide range of
limitations of developing VR applications for the web in contrast mathematical domains [3]. For certain subjects that involves
to native desktop applications are discussed. We outline the
utilization of A-Frame framework together with the JavaScript the use of experiments in teaching, VR can bring benefits by
library React for fast VR prototyping. Individual components simulating specialized tools used in practice, which are usually
defining the MathworldVR 3D user interface within virtual very expensive for school to be obtained [8].
environment (VE) are presented and we show how various two Interactions can play a crucial role in increasing learner
handed interaction techniques help in the process of teaching engagement, if designed appropriately. VR tools, methods,
mathematics.
Index Terms—mathematics, virtual reality, user interface, in-
procedures and affordances of a virtual world can lead students
teractivity, direct manipulation into having meaningful and engaging conversations [7].
A variety of visualization techniques can be used to see and
I. I NTRODUCTION understand various graphical representations of mathematical
functions through location, shape, color, and even animation
For technical sciences, mathematics is an important part of a resulting visual object. Proper usage of these visual
of the university curriculum. Higher mathematics curriculum mappings reveals the important features of a specific function
encompasses topics like linear algebra, geometry and differ- [3].
ential calculus. Under these topics the problem sets of vector One can say that virtual reality established itself in many
spaces, linear and geometric transformations, conic sections, disciplines of human activities, as a medium that allows easier
limits, integrals and first-order ordinary differential equations perception of data or natural phenomena appearance.
are studied. Especially for problems situated in the three- Therefore the education purposes seem to be the most natural
dimensional domain, for students to thoroughly understand ones. The intuitive presentation of construction rules (virtual
the context of particular problems they are working on and to Lego-set), visiting a virtual museum, virtual painting studio or
build up the “math sense” [1], they are routinely presented with virtual music playing [9] are just a few examples of possible
geometrical representations of problems by the instructor. Dur- applications.
ing lectures where geometrical representations play important With continuous advances in web technologies and improv-
role, the instructor usually uses prepared visual presentations ing support for rendering interactive 2D and 3D graphics
to convey meaning and information to the students. These are (WebGL), internet browsers became universal interface to a
presented in two forms: two-dimensional (2D) - pictures in vast amount of static and dynamic information [10]. Web
textbook, drawn on white-board or three-dimensional (3D) - opens door for cross-platform applications that do not need to
folded paper or cut-outs, 3D printed models, computer visu- be separately built for each operating system or certain type
alization, simulation. 3D visualizations are generally created of device, which stimulates faster prototyping and decreases
in: 1) 3D-modeling software, then animated and exported as a time-to-market (TTM).
video or web-based visualization; 2) simulation software like We implemented a web-based virtual reality (WebVR) ap-
Matlab, Octave, Scilab etc. Unfortunately, these are still mostly plication called MathworldVR, which explores the possibili-
presented to end users as non-interactive media. [2] ties and limits of web technologies for creating room-scale,
Recently, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) immersive, virtual learning environments (VLE) for helping
has shown usefulness when used as a tool for teaching math- students to explore, learn about and experiment with various
ematics [3], [4]. VR is convenient for creation of interactive parametrized functions. Main benefit lies in that it provides

978-1-7281-1951-9/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE

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an intuitive ways of instrumental interaction by using direct which encourages Entity Component System (ECS) pattern.
visual manipulation of the input variables, which shortens the They leveraged pool of A-Frame components, which repre-
time for learner to understand underlying principles of given sent growing ecosystem of open-source modules that can be
mathematical subject. It is also a practical tool for teachers to used for rapid prototyping of web-based VR applications. In
create visualizations and showcase abstract concepts in con- GraphVR, the user is able to interact with data presented in the
crete 3D environment during lectures. Our system is applicable form of graphs to facilitate the understanding of the graphs.
in higher education in multiple mathematical domains but has
III. D ESIGN OF THE M ATHWORLDVR
not been evaluated with students yet.
At the heart of user interface design is the“user” and the
II. S TATE OF THE A RT user is in the “driver’s seat”. Therefore it is critical that users
The study of Kaufmann et. al [11] utilized Construct3D, of any virtual environment should be able to use the interface
a three-dimensional geometric construction tool based on the intuitively, regardless of cultural diversities. The goal of user
collaborative augmented reality system Studierstube to educate interface design is to make the user’s interaction as simple
users in mathematics and geometry. By working directly in 3D and efficient as possible, in terms of accomplishing user goals
space, complex spatial problems and spatial relationships may [17].
be comprehended better and faster, because students had to User interaction with the virtual environment (VE) is one
calculate and construct mathematical objects and relationships of the most important issues to facilitate the user with the
between them with traditional (mostly pen and paper) methods. immersive feeling in the computer-generated world. By im-
Their system utilized a stereoscopic HMD and the Personal mersing users into VE, the functionality of VR system can
Interaction Panel, a two-handed 3D interaction tool, and found then be imposed [6]. As a virtual environment, the system level
that the use of VR technology in the form of Construct3D exploration and navigation within the overall environment is
facilitates ease of learning and encourages experimentation essential to application prototype.
with geometric constructions. When designing 3D user interfaces, the rapid change of the
In field of mathematics, VR application named Calcflow data or VE over time had to be addressed. It is important
[12] is making serious progress. It is developed by a company that the interface itself can promptly adapt to these changes
Nanome, Inc. started by students from University of California [10]. Additionally, in educational applications, all graphical
San Diego. Team behind Calcflow are using VR to help representations of studied phenomena has to be correct.
students grasp the biggest ideas in vector calculus. Its fea- We also had to take into consideration the delay between
tures include visualizations of vector addition, cross product, immediate haptic feedback of the user manipulating 3D objects
parametrized functions, spherical coordinate mapping, double and the visual response of the system. This is the case
and surface integrals. Beside Calcflow, they are implementing especially for web applications rendered with 90 Hz refresh
a VR platform specialized for atomic, molecular and protein rate inside VR headset. It was shown that if this latency is high,
visualization, built for researchers and scientists [13]. it causes the user to slow down and feel less comfortable [18].
Popularity of VR in recent years was greatly influenced Since our prototype is implemented in JavaScript as a
by hardware and software improvements on mobile devices WebVR application, it will be accessed through web browsers
like smart phones or tablets. Even after biggest annual fall and by variety of device types. This raises lot of questions
in smart phone history during 2017, when global smartphone about possible issues, mainly about:
shipments declined 9 percent annually from 438.7 million • potential increase of maintenance overhead when sup-
units in Q4 2016 to 400.2 million in Q4 2017 [14], mobile- porting wide range of different hardware and software
based VR maintains significant user base among VR platforms. platforms,
VR headsets for smart phones like Cardboard and Daydream • performance limitations in certain types of lower-end
by Google or GearVR by Samsung, present affordable way smart phones.
to experience VR and 360-degree video and are well-suited We argue that this is usually the case for most of todays web
for usage in classroom setting due to low entry costs. The applications that rely on heavy graphical features or processing
strong presence of mobile-based platforms among VR market of massive amounts data on client side, and as such is taken
was one of the leading factors behind motivation to develop into account during design and implementation process.
VRMath [15], an interactive, educational mobile application
(available for iOS and Android) targeted at high schools. It is A. Virtual Reality on the Web
positioned on helping students with 3D geometry, graphs and The limitations and possibilities of web browsers should be
vectors. thoroughly acknowledged and understood first before proceed-
Dynamism, fast prototyping and openness of the web ing to design and implementation.
platform was essential in development of GraphVR, web WebVR provides support for exposing data from virtual
application created by Aldrin et. al [16]. The team studied reality devices - for example head-mounted displays like
ways of transforming statistical tabular data into interac- the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift - to web application running
tive graphs inside VR. They implemented GraphVR using in a browser, enabling developers to translate position and
JavaScript programming language and A-Frame framework, movement information from the display into movement around

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a 3D scene in VE. Currently, WebVR support is included in interaction. Every part of the GUI within VE can be rotated
Chrome (from version 65), Firefox (from version 55) and Edge and positioned by means of input devices, such as a mouse,
(build 15002+ with the Windows 10 Creators Update or later) keyboard or hand controllers.
browsers. Additionally, manually enabling WebVR features in
browser’s settings may be required to function properly. IV. I MPLEMENTATION OF THE M ATHWORLDVR
In cross-platform WebVR design, it is crucial to take into MathworldVR is designed as a client-server, single page
account every possible way the user can interact with 3D WebVR application, primarily developed for - but not limited
world. Typical modern web applications can take advantage of to - usage with head-mounted displays (HMD). During the de-
media queries in Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to add different velopment process, four mainstream HMDs were used, namely
styles to HTML tags according to document width as a means HTC Vive and Oculus Rift for desktop-based VR, Google
to provide better user experience across multitude of devices - Daydream and Oculus Go for mobile-based VR, with their
PCs, tablets, smart phones or wearables. With WebGL, our respective hand controllers to support multitude of possible
only HTML tag available to work with is <canvas> so ways of interaction with the virtual environment.
working with CSS styles is very limited. However, we can To leverage full immersiveness and get as much didactic
use the Navigator interface [19], for which there is basic value from the features MathworldVR provides, users are
support built in every mainstream web browser, for checking encouraged to use VR headset. It can be used also on any
the identity of the user agent. This way we can send specific device through any browser that supports WebVR API starting
version of the application to the client, or lazy-load specific with version 1.0.
components conforming to the interface. Loading MathworldVR into VR mode is done by clicking
WebVR projects that depends heavily on interactions and on the icon described in Fig. 1 in the bottom right corner of the
are targeted not only at desktop users with high-end VR screen. After user loads the VR version of MathworldVR into
headsets and hand controllers, should always include fallbacks the headset and wears it, she is presented with room-scale,
for users: virtual environment (VE). With high-end VR headsets, user
• with VR headset but without hand controllers (desktop), can walk and move freely with six degrees of freedom in a
• preferring monitor, mouse and keyboard (desktop), virtual environment (usually advised to physically move within
• with mobile-based VR headset with hand controllers, boundaries outlined by sensors’ reach of particular rooms-
• with mobile-based VR headset without hand controllers. scale setup) or use teleport as a form of movement. In mobile
Absence of such fallbacks will result in degraded user VR, user is limited to three degrees of freedom.
experience.
In terms of cross-platform development, nowadays most
of VR applications are created with aid of modern game
engines like Unity or Unreal Engine. They are able to compile
native builds for all major platforms from the same code base,
including PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android and Playstation. Such
native builds will undoubtedly look better and run faster than
a comparable VR experience built with WebGL and WebVR.
The major advantage of WebVR over native desktop and
(a) VR mode icon (b) Position of the icon
mobile applications is that end user does not need to download
and install additional software and graphics drivers beside web Fig. 1. Button with VR icon functioning as a toggle for VR
browser that supports WebVR API. User only needs to click mode.
a link, type in a URL, and the application runs directly in
browser - there is not an App Store involved in the process.
Web developers can also take advantage of many open-source A. Technology
libraries available on the internet. The core of the application defines virtual world, rendered
On the other side, WebVR also has several disadvantages. as 3D graphics on screen within web browser using JavaScript
It’s still considered experimental JavaScript API due to its API called Web Graphics Library (WebGL). Working with
short time of existence (public version 1.0 was released on WebGL directly, however, is cumbersome. Various frameworks
1st March 2016) and its frequent API changes which prevents and libraries were created to simplify this process, such as
large-scale, production-ready applications to be built just yet. Three.js, Babylon.js, PlayCanvas, regl, etc. MathworldVR is
It also lacks on performance side as GPU cannot be accessed build on top of Three.js, which is cross-platform, industry-
directly using any JavaScript routines (although browsers can proven open-source JavaScript library with extensive doc-
provide hardware acceleration). umentation, used for creating and displaying dynamic 3D
We carefully considered all of the challenges and limitations computer graphics in a web browser. It leverages WebGL
mentioned above. Our application is designed to be fully APIs, providing abstractions on top of them for orchestration
responsive to user needs and preferences. It allows users to of the 3D environment. We use Three.js version r100 in
customize the positioning layout of VR UI by “grab and move” conjunction with A-Frame, a web framework for building

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virtual reality experiences. It was started by Mozilla to make virtual DOM nodes are efficiently rendered into actual DOM
WebVR content creation easier, faster, and more accessible. A- tree and presented as HTML page. Since web applications are
Frame allows developers build 3D scenes with HTML-like tags dynamic, it uses difference algorithms to check against any
while having unlimited access to JavaScript, Three.js, and all change within the virtual DOM tree. If any node changes,
existing Web APIs. It uses an entity-component-system pattern React then patches only the particular node in the tree with
(ECS) that promotes composition and extensibility. It is free all of its child nodes and re-renders only that specific part of
and open-source with growing community and a ecosystem of the application view.
tools and components [20].
ECS is a pattern popular in game development and is V. 3D C OMPONENTS
prominent in game engines like Unity. ECS favors composition
over inheritance. Every single object in the scene is an entity. A. Virtual Keypad
An entity is an empty placeholder object that by itself does Virtual keypad interface with clickable buttons was designed
nothing. We plug in reusable components to attach appearance, to serve as a panel for user input. Inputted functions are
behavior or functionality. We can also put different compo- displayed on the top of the brown rectangle. User can choose
nents together and configure them in order to define different from multiple variables, numbers, operators and mathematical
types of objects [20]. symbols to construct complex functions, just like on common
Object-oriented, hierarchical patterns have well-suited the scientific calculators’ keypad. Despite some VR design rec-
2D web, where we lay out elements and components that have ommendations encouraging designers and developers to try
fixed behavior on a web page. 3D and VR is different; there exploring new ways of input and interaction instead of emulat-
are infinite types of objects with endless complexity. A-Frame ing ones from physical world, we designed the numeric pad to
provides an easy way to build up different kinds of objects resemble real calculator as shown in Fig. 2, because we wanted
without having to create a special class for each one [20]. students to use MathworldVR’s input system intuitively and
A-Frame also handles all of the setup that is traditionally draw most of the attention to visual representation of particular
required for 3D: setting up WebGL, the canvas, camera, lights, equation.
renderer, render loop as well as providing VR support out of
the box on platforms such as HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Oculus
Go, and smart phones (Google Cardboard, Google Daydream
and Samsung GearVR). We can place objects within our scene
using assorted primitive elements that come with A-Frame
such as <a-box> or <a-sphere>. This approach helps with
keeping the code base readable [20].
Traditional JavaScript DOM APIs can be used to manipulate
A-Frame scenes to add logic, behavior, and functionality.
A-Frame comes accompanied with several core components
in its standard library, but since A-Frame is fully extensible,
the community around the framework created an ecosystem
of components such as physics, particle systems, audio vi-
sualizations, cross-platform input control systems and so on.
This ecosystem is the driving force behind the popularization
of A-Frame. Developer can build a component and publish
it to Node Package Manager (NPM) to distribute it. For Fig. 2. Virtual calculator component
MathworldVR, we developed custom components for parsing,
calculating and rendering of the parametric functions and con- Text input is still widely debated subject among VR devel-
trolling their input data. Each of the component is examined opers and researchers. Designers are inclined to experiment
in V. with novel approaches to this problem in search of the most
The architecture for MathworldVR was designed to be efficient way of writing text inside VR. However, research
extensible and modular, so we chose React to implement the repeatedly shows that the most viable solution is still the one
client-side of the application. React is a Javascript library for that resembles writing on real keyboard [22], [23].
building declarative, component-based user interfaces [21]. In We have chosen to use an update button for triggering the
addition with A-Frame, fusing both technologies allowed us parsing process and calculation of the parametrized function
to clearly define each part of MathworldVR application in expression written by the user, to prevent automatic, continu-
components with dedicated functions for working with local ous update. This helps keeping the performance stable while
component state. Components are written in XML-like syntax user interacts with the visualization. After clicking the update
called JSX, which acts as HTML enhanced with JavaScript button, expression is parsed into preferred format for the
code. React transforms JSX into virtual DOM hierarchy rep- rendering pipeline. Parsing it should eliminate badly written
resented as nested tree of JavaScript functions. This tree of expression by ignoring it and halting further render process.

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 Users can grab the virtual keypad and reposition it according movement and rotation. MathworldVR also utilizes a grabbing
to their needs. This interaction can be done with VR hand and zooming interaction by using the grip buttons on both
controllers or mouse. VR hand controllers simultaneously. These interactions are
graphically described in Fig. 3(b) and 4 respectively.
B. 3D Representation of a Function
Function’s surface is constructed from set of points satisfy-
ing the function, within the range identified by minimum and
maximum limit for each axis. These limits can be changed
dynamically by sliding one of the min/max sliders in settings
panel. Changes to the limits trigger immediate re-render of
the function’s graphical representation. We created custom A-
Frame component parametricfunction which is responsible
for its rendering. Surface material is created by combining
two THREE.MeshBasicMaterial materials - one represent-
ing color and another the wire-frame. Geometry of type
THREE.ParametricGeometry is generated combining set of
positions of the points and number of segments. Together they
are combined into final multi-material object and rendered into
scene.

(a) Graphical representation of parametrized function in 3D

Fig. 4. Scaling of a 3D function with hand controllers

C. Function Settings Panel

On the left side of the virtual keyboard resides the panel

that is used for interactively exploring parameter spaces with
VR hand controllers as shown in Fig. 5. Settings panel houses
variables representing minimum and maximum of the range
defining set of input variables within particular axis and some
additional settings like color of the function’s surface and
(b) Hand controllers are utilized for enabling intuitive interactions number of segments of which function is composed.
Fig. 3. Parametrized function By pointing any of the controllers at this panel, the ray
is casted pointing forward from the tip of the VR controller
Visualization of various parametrized functions from user- until user directs it elsewhere. Variables thereby represented
inputted expressions, as shown in Fig. 3(a), contains Cartesian can be changed by pointing at the edge of the blue infill within
coordinate system represented by a 3D grid with x, y and z axis particular slider, pulling the controller’s trigger button and
(red color), initially positioned next to the virtual keyboard dragging the slider left or right. Same interaction works with
after MathworldVR environment is loaded. computer mouse. Visual representation of a function responds
User can explore the function, move around it physically, to these changes in real-time, giving the user immediate
grab it and move it closer or further, make it bigger to see feedback to see what impact the change of variable has on
parts of it in detail or make it small enough for convenient parametrized function.

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