Dominique Nunez Garcia is a senior civil engineering student at Fresno State, with a structural emphasis and a minor in mathematics. She is part of a research team developing a virtual reality (VR) inspection module designed to make structural inspections safer, faster, and easier to understand.
A Real-World Problem: Inspections Can Be Risky, Slow, and Expensive
Dominique explained that traditional structural inspections often require engineers to travel to job sites, sometimes into hazardous conditions. This can take time away from other work and add travel costs. VR offers a way to reduce those risks by allowing inspections to be conducted remotely, using scans captured on-site, including images and video collected by drones.
Building the VR Inspection Experience
Dominique described a workflow that begins with capturing a structure through photos or video from multiple angles. That data is then used in photogrammetry to create a rotatable 3D model or 360-degree view. The visuals are enhanced where needed to improve clarity around cracks or possible failure points, and the final output is placed into a VR module.
Within the module, users can move through viewpoints such as top, front, and side angles by selecting on-screen navigation points. This helps create a guided inspection experience rather than leaving users unsure of where to click or how to move through the environment.
Dominique’s Focus: User Experience for Engineers and Stakeholders
Dominique’s role focused on usability. She helped design the module so it would be comfortable and clear for both technical users and non-engineers. She noted that cognitive overload and motion sickness are important design considerations in VR and emphasized the need to keep the interface simple so the inspection task remains the main focus.
She also explained the value of making the module understandable to clients and other stakeholders. If an engineer needs to show someone what is wrong in a structural area, the VR experience should make that issue easy to see and understand without requiring technical background knowledge.
Iteration That Improved the Experience
One important design change came when the team moved away from a before-and-after comparison model because it took too long for users to navigate. Instead, later versions presented a single inspection scenario in which the issue was already visible, and the user’s task was to identify it.
In one example involving a steel plate with 12 bolts, the user identifies which bolt is loose. This shift reduced the amount of time needed to complete the task from minutes to seconds. The team then refined the labeling so users could report findings more clearly.
Testing Revealed Important User Behavior
To evaluate task flow and navigation, Dominique took the headset home and recorded herself moving through the module as if she were a first-time user. She tested different labeling approaches and transitions to better understand how people might interact with the system.
One of the biggest surprises was that some users did not realize they could click the buttons to transition between angles, even when labels were present. This highlighted how important simple onboarding cues are, especially for people who are new to VR.
How STEM-NET Supported the Project
Dr. Xiangxiong Kong, Dominique’s faculty mentor, was a STEM-NET 2024–25 Faculty Interdisciplinary Collaborative Research SEED Awardee for the project Advancing Civil Structure Inspection through Innovative Virtual Reality Interface Design and Assessment Methods. Dr. Laura Huisinga served as Co-PI, and the SEED award totaled $24,995.
Through this SEED-funded project, Dominique joined the research team as a paid undergraduate research assistant. She shared that the funding opened valuable professional development opportunities, including travel support to attend and present at the 2026 SPIE AR | VR | MR Conference. At the conference, she presented her work, “Iterative Interface Design of a Virtual Reality Module for Civil Infrastructure Inspection,” and had the opportunity to connect with other researchers, exchange ideas, and bring back insights that may help inform the project’s future direction.
Dominique also highlighted the value of Dr. Kong’s mentorship, especially in helping her build technical and research writing skills and learn how to produce work that meets professional standards.
What’s Next
Dominique is considering graduate school and has also thought about pursuing a Ph.D. Her long-term goal is to combine real-world engineering experience with continued research.
Her advice to CSU students interested in research is to identify professors whose work sparks their curiosity, come prepared with questions, and explore faculty research descriptions and available funding pathways. She believes these steps can help students find meaningful opportunities and succeed in their research journeys.