Sam "Shimi" Halperin | שיםי חלפרן
Published, award-winning American software developer with two decades of experience spanning Philly B-Corps, startups, and a major hospital. Recognized for technical excellence and user-focused design. Currently interested in VR, particularly social VR, and VR exercise-gaming.
My work in VR centers on presence—the way inhabiting a space through specialized displays and machine proprioception reshapes how we experience community. In memory and in dreams, there is often no boundary between real and virtual places, no distinction between people we recall across a physical table or a virtual one.I develop primarily in Unity for standalone Android-based headsets, typically powered by Snapdragon chips. Spatial storytelling doesn’t require massive scale to succeed. The constraints of standalone devices actually support small, focused, intentional experiences—exactly the kind solo creators and small teams excel at.
Supporting a Video Avatar w/ an Alpha Channel (Transparency) in Unity for Meta Quest.
The artifacts from this project are the demo videos and tutorials/recall notes, as well as a GitHub repo with a modular UnityPackage that others can use.Unity 6 natively supports this now, but the point was to do this as an entree to being able to work with 3D video content with alpha-transparency.[Sole Developer]Uncommissioned Work
Cheers! (Grab Interactibles: left hand grab / right hand grab)
A quick and dirty script to support dual-attachment points for grab interactibles. The upshot is the mug points the right way when you grab it with either hand. (Script in link below.)[Sole developer. Additional freeware texture was used.]Uncommissioned Work
VR Virtual Staging | Medford, NJ, 1br
Dual deployment for web browser and head mounted display.[Sole developer, w/ visual assets provided by SketchUp]Uncommissioned Work
VR Virtual Staging | Society Hill Towers, 1br, Philly
Dual deployment for head mounted display and web browser.[Sole developer, w/ visual assets provided by SketchUp]Uncommissioned Work
Lijoana Skin and Body Institute | Equip Consultants
Architectural Pre-visualization[Sole developer]
See More on my YouTube Page
More on my GitHub
Virtual Reality Exergames as a Design Space
Project and demo code on GitHub. This is from about 2015, and unfortunately I don't maintain the code anymore, but the paper might still be relevant.
After more than a decade as a professional web and mobile developer in the greater Philadelphia area—most recently as a Senior Developer—I transitioned away from full-time client work to focus on immersive development and speculative design.Below is a selection of both professional projects and personal experiments from that earlier era.
Strength Through Insight | Jefferson Health
Patient Reported Outcomes (PRO) Study[Co-lead developer 1 of 2: Built the backend application that provided data analysis and visualization.]
OpenTreeMap | Azavea Inc.
An urban forestry suite backing a dozen themed municipal deployments.[Co-lead developer 1 of 4: Built the GIS implementation and many other features of the app]
US Army Corp of Engineers WISDM | Azavea Inc.
A water resource manager using raster map composition to produce insights about flood risk, coastal topology, and waterway infrastructure.[Junior developer 1 of 3: Built relatively minor UI elements.]
Pour Judgement, St. Pete
Android drink menu for a boutique cocktail bar in St. Petersburg, FL.[Sole developer]
Philly Bike Share Map
Check the status of bike share kiosks.[Sole developer with map markers by J.Merigliano]Uncommissioned Work
Moderne
Mobile browser for the collection at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, New York.[Sole developer]Uncommissioned Work
The Benefit Bank | Solutions for Progress
A large web app that tried to help people connect to benefits and financial supports, as well as file taxes.[Senior Developer 1 of approx. 8]
President's Dashboard | Jefferson Health
Private, cloud-native task management[Lead Developer 1 of 2]
Stanford Custom event map-maker | Azavea Inc.
GIS App for creating high-impact custom event maps for faculty and students.[Lead Developer 1 of 3]
WhyHunger Food resource map | Solutions for Progress
Linking people in need with food resources.[Developer 1 of 3, responsible for frontend templates]
Shimi Halperin
Contact
Or come hang out in VR
One-to-One Mentoring
The best therapy for imposter syndrome!
Working in Unity—especially with VR—can be overwhelming. Between input systems, scene management, and just getting something to run on a headset, it’s easy to lose momentum.I’m Unity Associate certified and actively developing for Quest using OpenXR and the XR Interaction Toolkit, but I also remember what it’s like to be stuck on the basics.This isn’t about being a guru. It’s about sharing what I’ve learned and helping you make progress—whether that’s fixing a bug, understanding a concept, or just having someone to talk it through with.Let’s get your project moving.I charge $54/ session and accept payment via Venmo, Zelle, or personal check and am in the US Eastern time zone. Please hit 'contact' below to schedule a session.
COMING SOON!
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