From the outside, it appears to be a fairly nondescript building on the University of Otago campus.
But enter the home of the Human-Computer Interaction [HCI] Group and be prepared to be wowed by some seriously cool, world-first research.
The group, which is part of the information science department, is led by Prof Holger Regenbrecht and Dr Tobias Langlotz.
Their special field of interest is virtual and augmented research, mobile systems, and video-conferencing and telepresence research.
They conceptually design, prototypically implement and evaluate systems.
It might sound terribly complicated but it was all about doing relevant research and "get it out there'', Prof Regenbrecht said.
As well as viewing HCI from a technological standpoint, the group was also interested in psychological, sociological, aesthetic, philosophical, applicational and translational aspects of it.
One of the most successful systems was for stroke rehabilitation.
Patients usually had one side of their body that was "not really working''.
By putting their hands inside a box and mirroring over their impaired hand with their healthy hand, the impression was given they could move the impaired hand and that led to rewiring of the brain, over time.
Two of those systems were being used in Dunedin. One was with collaborators in Berlin and therapy was being developed around it.
It was built for hospital use but Prof Regenbrecht hoped it would eventually be able to be used at home.
The system was built in his garage and the potential for it was "huge''.
But to commercialise it would require "quite a lot of money''.
Collaborating in Berlin meant an opportunity to test it on a much bigger population and also to potentially spark interest from investors.
While the group was good at developing and testing technologies, Prof Regenbrecht said he was not an entrepreneur and their focus was not about setting up and running a business.
It had been successful in publishing projects.
The group has just started a Dunedin City Council-funded project with the Methodist Mission, which runs social services at the Otago Corrections Facility, near Milton, to teach reading and writing skills, using virtual reality.
A virtual mechanic's application had been built and the goal was for prisoners to assemble and disassemble car parts and learn to associate words with those parts.
Hopefully, that would enable them to improve reading and writing skills.
"We're very passionate about it ... it's a really cool project,'' he said.
Two German students were looking at mixed reality embodiment, where a body was scanned and reconstructed.
The goal was to see whether it could be used as a therapeutic tool for body perception.
It would be showcased at the New Zealand International Science Festival in Dunedin in July.
Abdul Alshaer was building a virtual reality electric wheelchair simulator, which would cut down the expense of shipping a chair to a potential user to see if they were able to use it, and that would be tested in Montreal this year.
Another student was working on a virtual reality system for post-natal stress resilience training.
Virtual reality was "coming back now'' and the group had a knowledge advantage because they had worked in virtual and augmented reality for so long, Prof Regenbrecht said.
Dr Langlotz said being based in Dunedin was no barrier and there were many companies in the city interested in using the technology.
He made it clear to students that they did not have to leave the city after graduating.
Prof Regenbrecht was keen to see more partnerships in the city, saying the university was a source for knowledge and it had the technology and the young people.
