Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality is not just a tool; it is at once technology, medium, and engine of social relations. It not only structures social relations, it is the space within which the relations occur and the tool that individuals use to enter that space. It is more than the context within which social relations occur, for it is commented on and imaginatively constructed by symbolic processes initiated and maintained by individuals and groups.

The definition of virtual reality is “the effect created by generating an environment that does not exist in the real world. Usually, a stereoscopic display and computer-generated three-dimensional environment giving the immersion effect. The environment is interactive, allowing the participant to look and navigate about the environment, enhancing the immersion effect. Although this definition has elements that enhance our understanding of VR, it also limits the understanding of what virtual reality is by specifying hardware that is used to create the “virtual” effect. Other attempts at defining virtual reality in the military have suffered from a similar focus on current hardware. A 1996 SAASS research paper defined it as “the combination of real-time 3-D computer graphics with shading and texture mapping, high resolution stereoscopic large screen or head mounted displays, along with novel user interfaces.

From its inception as a technology, virtual reality has promised to revolutionize the way we interact with our computers and each other. So far, the reality of virtual reality has not lived up to the hype.

Since the late 1980s, virtual reality has been heralded as the next technology that will revolutionize the way we use our computers in the future. Many experts in the virtual reality field were convinced that the technology would rapidly overcome the physical barriers it faced. Their enthusiasm for future possibilities created expectations from fields as diverse as the entertainment industry and the United States government. Many of the potential users were persuaded by the hype to invest significant resources into this next great technology.

But the return on their investments has been slow to be realized. Although virtual reality has been able to gain a foothold in specific applications and industries, it has not been widely accepted as a means for interacting with your computer. The problems that have plagued virtual reality technology vary widely from extremely limiting and cumbersome interfaces to a lack of applications that are able to take advantage of the medium. The early hype and resulting failure to deliver has created an environment where the mention of virtual reality future elicits responses that are extremely skeptical about its usefulness for anything but esoteric applications.

The degree that the virtual reality interface conforms to the characteristics of immersion and interactivity can be plotted in Figure below. Strong VR is a VR interface that is highly immersive and highly interactive – making it difficult to distinguish from reality. Weak VR corresponds to a computing environment that is neither immersive nor interactive in a natural sense.

The simplest form of virtual reality is a 3-D image that can be explored interactively at a personal computer, usually by manipulating keys or the mouse so that the content of the image moves in some direction or zooms in or out. Most of these images require installing a plug-in for your browser. As the images become larger and interactive controls more complex, the perception of "reality" increases. More sophisticated efforts involve such approaches as wrap-around display screens, actual rooms augmented with wearable computers, and haptics joystick devices that let you feel the display images.

Popular products for creating virtual reality effects on personal computers include Bryce, Extreme 3D, Ray Dream Studio, trueSpace, 3D Studio MAX, and Visual Reality. The Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) allows the creator to specify images and the rules for their display and interaction using textual language statements.

haptics

human-computer interaction

quicktime VR