Trails observed in bubble chambers.

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Updates from our developers

You Look Different!...

By Andrew Cabbage | Student Developer | April 18th, 2026

Recently, the NOMR project has gone through significant changes to the underlying UI system which supports the project. First and foremost is the change in style/appearance of the platform. UI elements have taken on a flat and sleek aesthetic for better readability, ease of use, and consistency with the mission of the NOMR platform.

Secondly, the UI is now much easier to iterate and expand on using our new dynamic loading system. Instead of switching out prefabricated menus or toggling particular buttons on and off, the new UI system uses a dynamic loading system which adds and removes buttons on demand in accordance with a virtual menu profile. This keeps the overhead low and menus customizable.

the old NOMR spawn menu (pre-2026)

An image of the old NOMR spawn menu (pre-2026) .

Another improvement to the menus is the visual animation and feedback. The original buttons were fairly bloated and used CPU calculations for visuals, whereas now we have moved animations to the GPU using a state dictionary and timer. This imrpoves latency in the headset by about 0.3 ms, which is a very solid improvement when every frame counts.

On top of the improvements to the menus, the look of the lab environment has been changed too, using a math-based grid instead of a texture. The scale of the workspace has been made uniform, and the colors have been altered for less eye-strain. Lastly, NOMR now uses 4x MSAA for anti-aliasing in VR, which is a common and accurate way to improve visuals for VR applications without losing performance.

the new NOMR spawn menu (post-2026)

An image of the new NOMR spawn menu (post-2026) .

We at NOMR hope these visual improvements make NOMR feel like a more finished product for the classroom environment. Our number one priority is the experience of the students in our labs, and we continually welcome feedback from them. If you have any comments, concerns, or reccomendations, please don’t hesitate to reach out to use.