Virtual Reality: A New Era of Digital Immersion
Virtual reality (VR) is a new digital technology that provides unique, immersive experiences that span the boundaries between digital and physical worlds. Science Fiction has given birth to the realms of VR and where it comes from, until it becomes real and is now usable in entertainment, education, healthcare etc. Pro Magazine covers: What is VR and how it is created, the idea of VR, different uses of VR, and where VR might lead us.
The Evolution Of Virtual Reality
Virtual reality is a concept that has been around for decades, but large strides in technological development in the 21st century have made it popular in numerous industries. The distinction was drawn by the forerunners of VR in the 1960s and 70s like the Sensorama and the Sword of Damocles, and although the work was pioneering, spatial freedom within the virtual content was limited to the technologies available at the time.
The beginning of the true VR renaissance with the Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive and finally the PlayStation VR, finally bringing the technology to the modern era. The idea behind VR and AR devices is to convey real-world human experiences by using high-resolution displays, motion tracking, and immersive audio of three-dimensional environments, among other stimuli.
Key Technologies for VR
Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs): The basic building block of VR is an HMD that enables a stereoscopic display resulting in 3D virtual world. The user tracks the head of the wearer to modify the perspective automatically. Motion Detection - The user can move and the sensors and cameras used know your movements, so games are quasi-interactive.
More advanced systems like room-scale tracking make it all the more immersive. This is technology that gives you a stronger tactile feeling to make your interactions in the virtual world feel more real. A haptic gloves, haptic suits SoundReplicant spatial audio systems reproduce the origins and flight paths of authentic sounds to an even more realistic degree, giving users an even stronger feeling of being somewhere else.
The World of Virtual Reality
- Entertainment - VR has become incredibly popular in the entertainment space, with a great deal of interest from the industry at an early stage. Video games create vast, interactive worlds for players to explore and interact with, providing experiences not possible in film before. VR theaters and virtual concerts are starting to crop up as well, creating completely new consumption methods.
- Education - The potential of VR in education is immense. Virtual field trips have the potential to offer a unique experience taking students to a historical location, outer space or even the human body, giving a real world lesson that would be both fun and educational. That said, fields such as medicine and aviation can particularly benefit from VR simulations for professional training - risk-free environments to practice complex procedures and operations.
- Healthcare - In healthcare, VR is utilized both for treatment and training. For example, VR can serve as a tool for pain management and anxiety reduction for patients with the use of immersive distraction techniques. It is also used in physical rehabilitation to develop enjoyable exercises. Indeed, this foray into simulation offers medical professionals a platform to perfect surgeries and medical procedures, free from the dangerous consequences of real-life practice.
- Business and Industry - Business use VR for virtual meetings, product design and even training their employees. There is another advantage for VR which is virtual prototyping which can save time and resources in an design process. It is also used for creating life like environments to train the employees in some of the hazardous job roles such as firefighting, construction, etc.
New Opportunities
As technology moves on so does the future of VR. AI integration can automate future smart and interactive virtual environments. With the rise of VR and its decreasing cost to enter this technology, many industries are going to end up using it in some way shape or form. Advances in AR and MR may bring these virtual worlds into seamless overlap with the real world, allowing technology to augment our reality in ways that enrich our daily lives.
Conclusion
Virtual reality is quite literally at the cutting-edge of technology, providing up to full-immersion digital interactions that will tool the way we engage with digital content. Entertainment, education, healthcare, and industry to name a few of the impact areas this technology can have. With the advancement in technology, the use of VR is within the reach and, VR is the next big thing which is going to combine totally with our everyday lives, changing how we will interact with the digital as well as physical space.