Let’s dive into what VR(Virtual Reality) is
Well, it starts with a clue which is in the name itself “Virtual” – it’s the experience of a world that doesn’t actually exist.
We aren’t talking about getting yourself lost in a book on a beach but the reality we are talking about is the one created by computers that allows you to experience and interact with a 3D world that isn’t real but virtual.
You will wear a headset and the display will typically be split between your eyes, creating a stereoscopic 3D effect with stereo sound, and together with the technology and the input tracking, it will create an immersive, believable experience, allowing you to explore the virtual world.
We all remember the movie The Matrix, a popular 1999 movie about a realistic, virtual-reality future that was so different from our everyday life that the main characters originally believe that the simulation they are in is real.
Similarly, Virtual reality is a computer-generated simulation of an alternate world and is mostly being observed in 3d movies and in video games. VR creates real-life simulations – which is to shut out our real-world and immerse us in a virtual world. And we use computers, sensory equipment such as headsets, and gloves to feel the immersion.
Apart from games and entertainment, virtual reality is now fast catching up in training, simulation like airplanes, education, and science.
A bit of VR Hostory
To surprise you all, VR has been around for decades. To give you an idea, the first head-mounted display wasn’t an Oculus Rift, even though this is the device that revolutionized the VR industry, it was a device called Headsight that was created in the 1960s. A 360-degree painting with no digital data, that had the same aim as VR: to make your experience feel real.
Although we all associate virtual reality mostly with games that’s not all that VR is good for.VR has plenty of applications and this is only likely to expand as the technology develops further.VR technology has been now used in science and medicine to train doctors, pilots, architects to present their latest ideas ahead of and learn advanced technologies fast.
To give you guys, a recent innovation of IKEA marketing campaigns explored Virtual Reality creativity to woo their customers.
They released an interactive VR experience called IKEA Place that allows customers to virtually remodel and redecorate their kitchens or living rooms with more than 2,000 furniture items.
The company’s Leader of Digital Transformation, Michael Valdsgaard, explains,
“You see the scene as if these objects were real and you can walk around them and interact with them, even leave the room and come back. It’s really magic to experience.” Users can interact with various configurations of furniture and other items as if they were actually standing in the rooms. They can edit or change the colors and styles to envision different variations, deciding precisely which looks they like before they buy.
How does virtual reality work?
To experience virtual reality, you would require some form of a head-mounted display, a computer, smartphone, or console that creates the 3D world, and some form of input tracking device – hand tracking, voice, or head.
These headset devices use the stereoscopic display to make what you see three-dimensional and also give depth to the visuals that you are looking at. That’s how God has created our eyes to see everything.
But the very important part is the input or motion tracking which makes virtual reality the immersive experience. Motion tracking of your hands can be experienced in a variety of forms from smart gloves to the likes of Oculus Touch, Valve’s Lighthouse, and HTC’s controllers for its Vive headset.
The basic idea is to ensure you feel as though you are using your hands during your virtual experience. Sensors from motion tracking help detect the precise position of the head and hands and therefore communicates the same to a computer device to make you feel an immersive experience.
Frame rate is necessary and very important to ensure the virtual world reacts in a similar fashion, a high frame rate (minimum of 60fps) is recommended.
There are currently a number of head-mounted displays all using this set-up including devices from Oculus, HTC, and PlayStation.
As we mentioned, some of the VR devices contain a display, splitting the feed for each eye. In these cases, a cable (usually HDMI) will transfer the video from your PC or console to the screen(s) in front of your eyes. Other more affordable VR devices make use of your smartphone to display VR content.
There are also standalone, wire-free devices like the Oculus Quest 2 which offer entry to mid-level VR experiences without the need for an expensive smartphone or gaming PC to power them.
In the coming future, the world of VR is going to be defined by these stand-alone headsets. The desktop headsets ate still a high-end option for many but a stand-alone VR headset delivers the true deep immersive VR experience.
Check out our blogs to know more about VR high end headsets.
