Nathan Thomas-Benke

I build VR training simulators

XR Developer at ARCS Aviation

Hey there, I'm Nathan, an XR developer with a master's in Virtual and Augmented Reality from Goldsmiths, University of London, and a bachelor's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. That mix gave me a strong technical foundation and a specialization in a field I've wanted to work in for a long time.

I build hands-on, real-time 3D and XR applications in Unity with C#, shipping across Meta Quest, HTC VIVE, and Android and iOS tablets. I've had the chance to work for industry leaders: digital-twin visualizations at Sandia National Laboratories, interactive AR content at 3D Systems, and VR training at ARCS Aviation across DoD and U.S. government contracts.

My master's thesis explored real-time graphics remapping, retexturing real-world objects live from RealSense depth streams, and it's now growing into Lucid, one of my NTB Labs projects. Other work has been recognized nationally: BeatBoxVR won the Jury Prize at the Innovate UK Immersive Tech Awards, and I was a finalist and speaker at AWE EU with 4th Frontier, a small XR development group I'm part of.

My most recent project is NTB Labs, the umbrella for everything I build across disciplines, from developer tools to games to music.

NTB Labs is my independent software studio: dev tools, games, and creative work, built in public.

From browser extensions to native apps to real-time 3D. One studio, many disciplines.

Sift

Coming soon

Browser extension · Re-ranks Amazon search results by statistical merit, entirely on-device.

Catan Lab Generator

Live

Web app · Strategic map generator for Catan that balances boards by player count and resource fairness.

Native Windows app

Confide

In development

Real-time 3D / Unity

Lucid

In development

Visit NTB Labs →

Selected Work

Professional · ARCS Aviation

2024 – Present

ARCS Trainer

XR Developer

A VR training platform for complex mechanical procedures.

Problem

Hands-on practice on real aviation equipment is expensive, slow to schedule, and high-consequence. Trainees need repetitions that physical hardware can't provide.

Approach

I lead development of VR training simulations on Meta Quest and HTC VIVE: interactive tools that teach complex mechanical procedures through hands-on practice in full-scale virtual environments. I own the interaction layer (OpenXR / XR Interaction Toolkit) and scene performance for large environments.

Early results

In an initial pilot, a small cohort of maintenance workers who supplemented their existing paper procedures with the VR training showed improved performance and responded strongly positively to XR as a training and learning medium.

Unity · OpenXR · XR Interaction Toolkit · Meta Quest · HTC VIVE

Award-winning

2024

BeatBoxVR

Sound Designer · Programmer · 3D/Graphics · UI

Innovate UK Immersive Tech Awards 2024: Jury Prize Winner, Technical Innovation Finalist

A VR drumming experience with realistic kit audio and haptics.

I owned sound design and audio programming, built environment and graphics assets, and designed UI for a VR drumming experience: realistic kit audio, haptic feedback, and play-along and challenge modes, built with a five-person Goldsmiths team.

Unity · C# · VR · Ableton Live

GitHub

Thrustmaster HOTAS and custom Arduino controller setup

First-person view from the rocket battery

Third-person view of the custom howitzer

2023

Artillery Rocket Simulator

Sole Developer

A hardware-driven artillery and guided-rocket simulator.

I built a guided-rocket and howitzer artillery simulator end to end in Unity: ballistics, particle systems, and destructible targets, driven by a Thrustmaster HOTAS and a custom-wired Arduino controller.

Unity · Arduino · Custom Input Hardware

GitHub

Augmented Duelists battleground through Snapchat

Monster summoned onto the physical play space

2024

Augmented Duelists

UI Design · Project Management

An AR card battler played through Snapchat.

Physical cards come to life through Snapchat: scan a Snapcode to load the battleground, then duel with custom monster and action cards, models, and animations. I designed the UI system and ran project planning for the dev team.

Lens Studio · Snapchat AR

GitHub

Terrain permutation with adjusted land-to-water ratio

2023

Origin of Humanity

Sole Developer

A procedural civilization map generator.

Tune the land-to-water ratio and regenerate endless terrain permutations. I built the generation pipeline and UI in Unity; playable in the browser.

Unity · Procedural Generation

Play on itch.io

View all projects →

Experience

Nov 2024 – Present ARCS Aviation XR Developer. I lead development of VR maintenance-training simulations in Unity (OpenXR, XR Interaction Toolkit) for Meta Quest and HTC VIVE: interactive tools that build hands-on proficiency with complex mechanical procedures, in a full-scale training environment optimized for standalone headsets, with asset-pipeline work that keeps large scenes fast to load. I also directed and produced the ARCS Trainer showcase video, handling scripting, direction, and production.
Oct 2024 AWE EU, Vienna Start-Up Pitch Competition finalist and speaker with 4th Frontier. Presented BeatStudio, a rhythm-education platform grown out of the BeatBoxVR work, to an international audience of XR professionals.
Sep 2023 – Sep 2024 Goldsmiths, University of London MSc, Virtual and Augmented Reality (research pathway). Built XR experiences and games across multiple engines, with hands-on prototyping, UX design, and content creation. My thesis, Real-Time Graphics Remapping, combined shader computation and object reprojection to retexture real-world objects live from RealSense depth streams.
May 2024 Innovate UK Immersive Tech Awards BeatBoxVR, our five-person Goldsmiths VR drumming experience, won the Jury Prize and was a Technical Innovation finalist: realistic kit audio, haptic feedback, and a play-along system, demoed live at the showcase.
Jun–Aug 2023 Sandia National Laboratories Virtual Technologies and Engineering R&D Intern. Contributed digital-twin visualizations in Unity for multidisciplinary MATLAB/Simulink models, and helped standardize resources while researching ways to streamline the Unity development cycle for complex visualizations.
Sep 2019 – May 2023 University of Wisconsin–Madison BSc, Computer Science, with a certificate in Art Studio (4D Digital Art). Programmed across a wide range of languages while building media-production and 3D-modeling skills, and graduated with a 3.76 GPA.
Jun–Aug 2022 3D Systems Digital Learning Content Developer (AR) on the Global Customer Success team. Developed maintenance procedures with subject-matter experts for a specialized 3D printer, and turned them into an interactive AR instruction tool for healthcare and industrial end users and the support team.
Jun–Aug 2021 Quad/Graphics Software Development Intern on the Imaging Operations team. Debugged and developed software applications using a variety of programming languages, and worked in a daily Agile-Scrum process.