When UbiSim's development team set out to create the Incisions & Dressings feature for Version 1.19, they built a system capable of displaying over 300 distinct incision states across six patients, each accurately reflecting healing progress, closure methods, and potential complications.

Achieving that level of realism on lightweight VR hardware required tight collaboration with UbiSim's nursing team, who provided the clinical blueprint guiding every artistic and engineering decision. In nursing simulation, the smallest detail—redness, drainage, suture tension—carries clinical meaning. Fidelity isn't cosmetic; it's educational.

Why It Matters

Incision care is a hands-on skill that learners rarely get to practice consistently in clinical rotations. Opportunities depend on patient assignments, unit timing, and sheer luck.

With Incisions & Dressings in VR:

• Every learner gains access to consistent, repeatable practice
• Students learn to recognize infection signs before they’re at the bedside
• Faculty can standardize evaluation without relying on unpredictable clinical cases
• Programs can strengthen fidelity without added equipment or manikin costs

The Clinical Foundation

Before a single line of code was written or texture created, UbiSim's nursing team established the clinical framework that would define success. They provided detailed clinical rules mapping how different types of incisions should look throughout healing. This clinical blueprint became the north star for the entire development process, ensuring that every technical decision served the ultimate goal of preparing nursing students for real bedside practice.

Designing the Feature for Educators and Learners

As the UX Designer responsible for shaping how Incisions & Dressings would live inside the UbiSim Editor, Elian Stolarsky played a key role in translating clinical requirements and technical capabilities into an intuitive design educators could use instantly.

Coming from a background in healthcare edtech and VR consulting, Elian approached the project with both professional experience and personal insight — having recently undergone two major surgeries herself.

“That personal experience helped me understand what nurses look for, how incisions change, and what patients feel,” Elian shares. “It gave me a different kind of empathy and awareness.”

Elian described the work as both exciting and challenging, largely because it required a deep understanding of how the UbiSim Editor translates every design choice into the VR experience. She spent time learning the Editor’s underlying logic, figuring out how each configuration would appear once inside the headset. At the same time, she worked to ensure the feature met accessibility and usability standards. The goal was simple but essential: when an educator configures an incision or dressing in the Editor, what they see on the screen should translate accurately and intuitively into the VR scenario.

Crafting Clinical Accuracy Through Art

Juan Puerta Aleman, 3D Character Artist, came to UbiSim after over 20 years in the gaming industry, working at major studios including Deep Silver and Unity Technologies. The incisions and dressings project became Juan's first full-scale project at UbiSim, and a significant departure from traditional game art, where the nursing team's vision would guide creative decision.

"The feedback process reminded me of game studios, but instead of an art director, I was getting input on clinical standards from nurses," Juan explains. After establishing the technical workflow, Juan began an iterative process of showing incision iterations directly to the nursing team, receiving immediate feedback on critical details. 

“That was my aha moment,” Juan recalls. “Watching sutures appear, the incision stage update, drainage shift — all instantly. It meant we built a complex pipeline that really worked.”

Bridging Art, Technology, and Clinical Vision

Zheng Li, Lead Technical Artist, serves as the crucial bridge between UbiSim's artistic vision, technical reality, and the nursing team's clinical requirements, enabling artists to display their work as intended while working within the constraints of mobile VR hardware.

 "We're using industry-standard rendering techniques, but we have to adapt it for devices that are essentially phones strapped to your head," Zheng explains.

Early in the year, Zheng developed the backend system that made unlimited incision textures possible — removing previous limitations and allowing the nursing team’s vision to become reality. Working closely with Juan, Zheng helped decide what would meet nursing standards for realism while remaining technically viable on the device.

It was a careful balance: make it look real enough for nurses to trust, but efficient enough to run smoothly.

The Engineering Vision

With a career specialized in educational VR simulations, Ryan Murdoch, Unity Technical Lead, brought the engineering perspective needed to translate the nursing team’s requirements into a functioning feature. His role was to design the architecture that made real-time switching between hundreds of incision conditions possible while maintaining performance.

"I'm actively exploring ways to increase the resolution and fidelity without adding limitations on size," Ryan explains. "It's about pushing what's possible within our technical constraints."

Ryan also highlighted the team’s biggest engineering achievement: the system that allows dressings to precisely adhere to virtual skin without clipping or gaps — a detail that, while insignificant in gaming, would immediately break realism for nurses.

"We’re not just building a product, we’re building trust. Every nurse who puts on the headset needs to feel that what they’re seeing and doing is real enough to matter.”

Translating Clinical Requirements into Code

Rudy Pangestu, Software Engineer, has been with Labster for 13 years and brought that extensive experience to bear on translating the nursing team's detailed requirements into technical solutions that could run smoothly on Android-based VR devices.

Rudy’s most complex task was developing the dressing application — ensuring bandages behaved realistically on contoured skin. He described the work as pure R&D: trial, error, and exploration.

"The technical achievement I'm most proud of is the advanced system we developed for applying dressings," Rudy explains. "We engineered it to precisely adhere without gaps or clipping through the skin surface." 

The Power of Cross-Functional Collaboration

What stands out across the team is the shared problem-solving mindset. Engineers, artists, and technical artists worked closely with UbiSim’s nursing team at every step — reviewing visuals, validating clinical accuracy, and refining each detail until it aligned with real practice.

The nursing team’s involvement wasn’t occasional; it was continuous. Every iteration was reviewed against clinical expectations to ensure fidelity was never compromised, even when technical constraints pushed the limits of what VR hardware could handle.

This collaboration — clinical + engineering + art — is what made the feature possible.