Unity Technologies has just published their Industry Trends Report for 2025, and ForgeFX Simulations is thrilled to have been selected as one of the featured companies invited to share our forecasts on the use and adoption of immersive technologies over the next year.
For this year’s Unity Industry Trends Report, we asked a range of technology professionals to share their forecasts for the use and adoption of immersive technology within their industry over the next year. The overall consensus suggests 2025 will be a year of exploration.
According to our contributors, early pursuits with multipurpose 3D platforms help technology teams understand and integrate 3D development workflows, which allows them to build proof-of-concept applications that create cascading benefits for non-technical stakeholders across the organization.
While some experts noted slowed innovation earlier this year (largely due to prohibitive price tags on the latest virtual reality (VR) hardware), most agree that emergent market competition and reduced costs have lately catalyzed extended reality (XR) development.
ForgeFX Simulations is proud to be a training simulator development partner of StrataTech Education Group, a company that focuses on the acquisition, growth and development of specialized career education schools, particularly skilled-trade programs designed to address the nation’s growing infrastructure needs. ForgeFX worked with StrataTech and their subsidiary, the Tulsa Welding School, to develop OcuWeld™, a virtual reality welding training simulator program that teaches students how to prep, grind and join materials in a virtual environment that removes the safety and cost concerns.
OcuWeld Welding Training Simulator
Welcome to the digital transformation of education! The OcuWeld™ welding training simulator utilizes virtual reality to enhance welding training programs using the Meta Quest VR device. Designed by welders for welders, and developed by seasoned ForgeFX Simulations developers, OcuWeld provides welding students with the opportunity to practice their hands-on training in a virtual environment where concerns about safety, access and cost are no longer relevant. OcuWeld immerses students in a virtual environment that mimics real life training experiences and provides the opportunity to practice skills independently.
StrataTech has integrated OcuWeld into the curricula of their subsidiaries, Tulsa Welding School and The Refrigeration School, to ensure that students have future-proof skills that employers are seeking. The program launches at a time when demand for skilled trade workers is at an all-time high in part due to the recently passed Infrastructure Bill. The bill, combined with President Biden’s Build Back Framework, will add an average of 1.5 million jobs per year for the next 10 years, according to The White House.
The growing pace of digitization is shifting the paradigm of education to lifelong learning that requires a continual evolution of technical skills and training. Alex DeClair and Chris Schuler, directors of the welding programs at The Refrigeration School, Inc. (RSI) and Tulsa Welding School (TWS), say today’s students have different needs, and infusing technology into programs is now imperative in the modern education space. Similarly, Chase Lane, VP of Transformation for StrataTech, understands the need for digital transformation in education and its role in addressing the nation’s critical infrastructure needs.
“It’s time that higher education meets the needs of its students rather than vice versa,” said Lane. “Digital is transforming education and ensuring that these technological advances reach the skilled trades is extremely important to StrataTech and vital to the growing needs of our labor force.”
OcuWeld engages students with a mixture of gamification and education. Students enjoy learning in a fun and highly interactive and dynamic environment that mimics real-world applications.
“As educators, it is our responsibility to ensure that we infuse technology into our programs and curriculum to meet the changing needs of our students and their future employers,” said Mary Kelly, President/CEO of StrataTech. “OcuWeld will not only help our students get additional training, it will also position them to meet the growing demand for skilled professionals.”
ForgeFX Simulations is proud to be a training simulator vendor for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), a government agency that operates transit service in the Washington metropolitan area. WMATA provides rapid transit service under the Metrorail name, more commonly referred to as a Metro, the third-busiest rapid transit system in the United States in terms of passenger trips. ForgeFX developed this rail operator training simulator for Metro heavy rail rapid transit system operators in order to train operators faster and for a fraction of the cost, all within a safe, risk-free virtual environment.
WMATA hired ForgeFX to develop a 3D immersive computer simulation to help change operator behavior for the better. The simulator helps Metro operators by increasing risk awareness and hazard identification to improve proactive problem solving and greatly enhance equipment operator training. Leveraging high-fidelity graphics, an immersive virtual reality-based environment, and a fully interactive virtual facsimile of the prime mover allows WMATA and ForgeFX to deploy a highly-effective training simulator the helps improve operator’s critical thinking as well as command and control of railway procedures and protocols.
The Metro Training Simulator allows users to implement the startup procedure, including everything from checking the load, to testing the air dump button, to removing the chocks. The simulation integrates switching logic to enable the user to throw switches manually in order to begin to move from a start position to the main line, while observing and avoiding foul points. The trainee is able to disembark from the train, walk to a switch, throw the switch, and return to the cabin to control the train which follows the track according to the switching logic.
The simulator helps Pierce’s customers experience the truck’s superior maneuverability, drivability, and operator functionality—without ever stepping foot into a physical truck.
ForgeFX Simulations worked closely with Pierce Manufacturing to develop this virtual reality (VR) based simulator for their Ascendant 100′ Heavy Duty Aerial Tower. Connected to the truck’s real physical controls, the simulation software immerses users in an interactive virtual environment where they are operating an Ascendant 100′ Heavy Duty Aerial Tower in virtual reality.
Augmented World Expo, Santa Clara, CA, May 30 - Jun 1, 2018. Augmented World Expo is the largest conference and exposition in the world for people working in Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Wearable Technologies.
Rick Smith from JLG Industries and Greg Meyers from ForgeFX Simulations presented this session on using virtual reality for industrial equipment operator training.
ForgeFX is a training simulator software development company based in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. We provide custom application development services for clients looking to create PC-based interactive training applications, using high-fidelity 3D graphics. Our clients compete in the mining, aerospace, transportation, construction, health care, education, and pharmaceutical industries.
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