In 2020, an unexpected precedent was set where physical work environments were expected to transition into a virtual one, and while this transition was easy for certain professions, a courtroom was not one of them.
There are multiple reasons why having a virtual courtroom is a difficult task. Capturing emotion and body language along with providing capabilities for side bar conversations between different members of the trial is difficult through a virtual environment. However, the biggest concern is sharing physical evidence. Even in a physical environment, sharing physical evidence with jurors can be challenging, as not all evidence is easily accessible to the jurors. However, using state of the art affordable technologies like VR/AR headsets and 3D rendering, sharing evidence can be done in a more realistic manner.
The prototype of our project was built using spatial.io and visualized using Occulus rift. With spatial.io we were able to 3D render a crime scene along with the associated evidence in a virtual reality plane. With this ability, the jury will be able to easily examine the evidence, explore the crime scene and have more information at their disposal, to form the final opinion regarding the verdict of the case.
