Virtual Reality: An Emerging Technology
Group 1 A
Tommy, Ashley, Ryan, Alexei
Key Words: Virtual Reality, Artificial Reality, Virtual Environments, Virtual Training, Computer Simulation, Immersion.
Virtual Reality (VR) is a computer-simulated environment that can make use of special sensory equipment to create a greater illusion of being in a space that only exists in a computer. The sensory equipment allows the user to gain sensations based on the virtual program being run to enhance the overall virtual experience. Some sensory equipment used with virtual reality includes stereoscopic displays for sight, headphones for sound, wired gloves for touch, and special treadmills for motion and movement. Though sensory equipment helps to make for a more believable virtual experience, VR can be as simple as a virtual car ride on a computer screen. Virtual Reality, more traditionally thought of as a recreational pastime, in recent years has been integrated and developed to fill more industrial purposes and needs from virtual training to applications in medicine. This technology, if implemented in the right ways, could not only improve on current technologies and concepts but could develop into a very useful tool for business. (Wikipedia, 2006)
Virtual Reality comes in immersive and non-immersive versions that ultimately achieve the same goals but on different levels of realism. Immersive VR is the most expensive and effective version of VR and is most often used for skills training. What sets immersive VR apart from non-immersive VR is the use of advanced sensory equipment with specially designed transducers and sensors to track the users actions and adjust the virtual scene accordingly. Stereoscopic displays track the user’s head movements, so that when he or she turns his or her head to the right the same happens within the virtual environment. This allows the user a sense of actual existence in the three dimensional space that the programmer has created. A specially designed wired glove can be used to give the user a way of interacting with objects in the virtual space and provide feedback to the user in the form of resistance. A user could also use anything from a simple keyboard and mouse to specially designed joystick or even a full bodysuit to interact depending on how technical the program is and how much money the developers are willing to spend. If the program allows, a user could even move around within the virtual environment with the help of special treadmills known as omnidirectional treadmills. These treadmills let the user move in any direction, which is what sets them apart from traditional treadmills. Headphones accompany the headset for auditory cues that the user may experience within the program when appropriate. (Weiss and Jessel, 1998) A quickly growing application of immersive VR is in medical training with routine surgical procedures like inserting a needle in close proximity to the spinal cord to administer powerful anesthetic. Research has shown that when allowing two groups to administer the anesthetic on a dummy the group that had prior training using the VR program did better with less anxiety than the other group. (Morris Steffin MD, 2005)
Non-immersive VR is a less technical way of providing a virtual experience. This simplified version of virtual reality does not provide the same depth as immersive VR, but has increased availability to businesses and the public without extensive instruction on how to use it. Most often non-immersive VR uses a simple computer monitor, speakers, keyboard, and mouse as a means to experience and interact with the virtual environment users see on the computer screen. This type of VR takes advantage of the 3D depth cues like closeness to horizon, color, texture, shading, perspective, etc. to create the illusion of a 3D space when the user is simply looking at their screen. A popular example of non-immersive virtual reality is first-person video games. Aside from the recreational uses for non-immersive VR, there are many corporate applications for this technology as well. Auto-cad programs used by architects and engineers operate within a 3D environment in order to recreate or design buildings and other structures. More commonly, businesses will use this type of VR to allow costumers to take 3D tours of cars, houses, vacation destinations, etc. in order to provide better customer service. (Weiss and Jessel, 1998)
At its core VR technology is used as a way to simulate environments or situations in a way that is convenient and believable for the user. Real estate and car companies have long used non-immersive virtual reality to create virtual tours of their houses and cars for both business and consumer convenience. Why test drive a dozen or more models of cars when you can just go online and try nearly any model out in a virtual depiction on your computer? This saves the consumer and dealer time and money. When looking for a new home some of the houses could be more than three or more hours away, and the costs of getting to the home may make potential buyers move on to a less desirable house that is closer to their location. VR can eliminate this problem by bringing the house to the consumer, either by placing the consumer in a virtual house that can be navigated by pointing and clicking or by having a virtual walkthrough with all the sights and sounds one might expect to experience if they were really there. (Weiss and Jessel, 1998)
Training is a key part of any major business that requires practiced skills in order to be successful within the work environment. Virtual reality allows potential employees to be trained without putting the company at risk if they make an error. This can apply to many businesses and organizations, such as airline companies, fighter pilots, military parachute training, and medical training. To achieve a real sense of hands-on training, a pilot could be placed in a real cockpit with all the equipment and functionality of its real life counterpart, but without putting the pilot or plane at risk. The pilot is surrounded on all sides by screens shaped like the windows of the plane and with all the visual clarity of a real environment. Then the pilot can be tested under different situations and even talked through procedures during the training process. The trainee never has to put on any special equipment but still gets a great sense of immersion in what they are doing because of sight and sound cues from the replica cockpit. (Weiss and Jessel, 1998)
Virtual reality cleverly uses what our minds expect to experience as a means to create a virtual environment that can be used to test skills, convey knowledge, or as a tool for the workplace. One of the biggest challenges virtual reality faces today has to do with the raising concept of ubiquitous computing, which means bringing the computer into the person’s world and not the other way around. Nevertheless, VR technology is a train that is only going to gain speed as developers find new and useful ways to apply it. Though the technology for virtual reality has been in use for many years, like many other growing technologies, virtual reality will only get better with time.
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