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Theatre

The Future of Virtual Reality

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The Future of Virtual Reality

History of Virtual Reality and How It Has Developed Until Now

Virtual reality is a replicated experience which can be comparable to the real world or utterly different from it. Besides, virtual reality includes applications such as entertainment and educational purposes. In the year 1935, science fiction author Stanley Weinbaum wrote Pygmalion’s Spectacles, and the main character in this fictional short story meets a professor who invents a pair of goggles that assigned him to view a movie with sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch. However, the first virtual reality technology was invented by Morton Heilig in 1957 (Lawson et al., 2016, p.335). Morton Heilig invented a theatre cabinet multimedia device called Sensorama that offered viewers an interactive experience (Pope, 2018). This device was a viewing screen for sight, oscillating fans for touch, devices that emitted a smell, and audio speakers for sound hence, inducing the users’ senses.

In 1961, Comeau and Bryan manufactured the first head-mounted display (HMD) referred to Head sight. Besides, this head sight had two video screens, one for each eye, and also a magnetic tracking device. Also, the head sight was first used to move a remote camera permitting a user to look around an environment without being there physically. Additionally, in 1966, Thomas Furness produced the first flight simulator for the Air Force, which led to increased interest in Virtual technology and how it could be used for training purposes. Moreover, Ivan Sutherland developed the first VR/AR head-mounted display called The Sword of Damocles in 1968. In 1978, MIT invented the Aspen Movie Map, which used photographs taken from a car in Aspen, Colorado, to give viewers a Surrogate Travel experience that was an interactive first-person view of the city.

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On the other hand, the concept of virtual reality was brought to the masses by the movie Tron in 1982. Moreover, through the 80s, Furness worked on his Air Force simulation project and later invented the Visually Coupled Airborne Systems Simulator (VCASS) in 1986. Besides, the pilots were able to streamline the barrage of information they get every moment, through the virtual view given by the system. In 1987, John Lanier coined the term virtual reality and founded the Visual Programming Lab (VPL) and also invented a rage a range of VR gear. These included the Data glove alongside Tom Zimmerman, and the Eye Phone HMD, hence, making VPL the first company to sell VR goggles.

Additionally, in 1991, a series of games and arcade machines were released by the Virtual Group hence, bringing VR to the general public (Pope, 2018). Therefore, players would play immersive games in real-time wearing a pair of virtual reality goggles. In the same year, Sega tried to bring the same gaming experience to the home with its console. However, the developers being comically worried, the company did not release the Sega VR headset accessory because they felt that it was too realistic, and they feared the users would get hurt. Nevertheless, in 1995, the first portable console that could display 3-D graphics was lanced by Nintendo Virtual Boy.

On the other hand, in 1997, Georgia Tech and Emory University researchers joined to create Virtual Vietnam by using Virtual reality to simulate war zones to help in veterans’ exposure therapy sessions treating PTSD (Lawson et al., 2016, p.335). In 1999, the matrix came to theaters and had a big buzz popularizing the idea of virtual realities with a more significant portion of the general public. In 2001, SAS cube was introduced as the first PC based cubic room, which eventually led to the Virtools VR Pack. Moreover, in 2007, google with Immersive Media announced Street View. Besides, to show users roads, inside buildings, and more, the panoramic images were captured from a patented camera mounted on a moving car (Lawson et al., 2016, p.335).

Additionally, in 2010, Palmer Luckey invented the prototype of the Oculus Rift headset, which featured a 90-degree field of vision that had not been seen before and also, for it to deliver the images, it relied on a computer’s processing power. In 2013, Valve corporation found a way to display lag-free VR content and shared it freely with Oculus and other vendors. Therefore, Valve and HTC announced their partnership alongside the HTC Vive headset. In 2015. Google introduced a Cardboard where a user places their phone inside a real piece of cardboard to wear on your head. In 2016. Many companies were inventing virtual reality products where most of the headsets had dynamic binaural audio, but the haptic interfaces were lacking. However, in 2018, Oculus revealed the Half Dome at the Facebook F8 Developer Conference, a headset with a 140-degree field of vision.

Types of Virtual Reality

Non-immersive Virtual Reality is a virtual experience through a computer where some characters or activities can be controlled, without interacting directly with the environment. For instance, playing video games like World of Warcraft, whereby you can control a character within the game which have their animations and attributes (Lawson et al., 2016, p.335). Besides, Fully Immersive Virtual Reality ensures that you have a realistic experience within the virtual world as if you are physically present within that virtual world and everything happening to you is for real (Riva et al., 2017). However, Semi-Immersive Virtual Reality is a mixture of non-immersive and fully immersive virtual reality. It can be in the form of a 3D space or virtual is where you can move about by yourself either through a computer screen or a VR headset.

On the other hand, Augmented Reality is whereby a particular device seems to be present in reality, but it is not. Instead of putting you in a virtual world, a virtual appliance is set in the real world through any device (Pope, 2018). For instance, you can view your room and probably place a cartoon character at the corner through your mobile screen. Moreover, collaborative VR is a form of a virtual world where different people from different locations come together within a virtual environment, in the way of 3D or projected characters.

Devices Used for VR

VR requires several tools to work, such as a headset, a computer/smartphone, and in some cases, a motion-tracking device. A headset displays content before a user’s eye while a cable transfers images to the screen from a PC. Another alternative option is headsets working with smartphones, like google, cardboard, and gear, whereby a phone acts as both a display and a source of VR content.

Fields That VR Is Being Implemented Now and Its Applications

Additionally, besides gaming, VR is being implemented in other areas such as education, science, medicine, and industrial design and architecture. For instance, the health care industry has been a big adopter of VR, whereby institutions use computer-generated images for diagnosis and treatment (Riva et al., 2017). Also, in space, scientists at NASA have a tough mission searching for life on other planets, and therefore, they look to cutting-edge virtual-reality technology to control robots on Mars and also to provide astronauts with a way to de-stress.

How VR Is Being Used Now and How It Can Be Used in The Future

Notably, virtual reality technology has been traditionally associated with gaming industry but amazingly it is being applied in other fields thus leading to great positive impacts in those industries. Therefore, companies are currently using virtual reality that engages employees in real work challenges and scenarios, when recruiting and training their workforce. In addition, most companies have embraced virtual sharing thus allowing personnel to collaborate on assignments without relocating to one physical location. For instance, this will be of great impact to companies with remote workers from different geographical locations since it will help them collaborate and finish tasks on time. On the other hand, the most significant future of VR application is more than just entertainment since it has the potential to influence daily life and it is also being adopted as a business tool in various industries. Virtual reality will work hand in hand with the existing teaching techniques and improve them since we live in a generation where learning is not restricted to prescribed textbooks. Also, visual learning has taken over and therefore, VR will bring the curriculum to life from elementary school to university level. In addition, in the future, the production and consumption of 3D content will become common in various newsrooms around the world. Hence, VR will have implications on the types of topics and contents that the readers will be submerged in, to minimizing the editorial control the publications will have.

Pros and Cons of VR

VR can replicate a dangerous environment for training purposes. For instance, firefighters can apply the skills they learned in a controlled environment before extinguishing a real fire. Also, VR has made conferencing easy where instead of driving to work only to have a sit through a meeting, VR can bring all the participants together in a virtual environment (Riva et al., 2017). Moreover, VR has also brought convenience in shopping. For instance, you can wonder how particular furniture would look in your room; hence, use virtual reality to juxtapose the interior of your room to make an informed decision. However, VR also has its drawbacks, which include addiction, which can be led by a person spending a more extended period in a virtual environment. Besides, excessive use of VR can lead to health effects such as loss of spatial awareness, dizziness, disorientation, and nausea.

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Riva, Giuseppe, Brenda K. Wiederhold, and Andrea Gaggioli. “A healthy mind in a healthy virtual body: The future of virtual reality in health care.” ANNUAL REVIEW OF CYBERTHERAPY AND TELEMEDICINE 2017 (2017): 3.

Lawson, Glyn, Davide Salanitri, and Brian Waterfield. “Future directions for the development of virtual reality within an automotive manufacturer.” Applied ergonomics 53 (2016): 323-330.

Pope, Hannah. “. The Future of Virtual and Augmented Reality.” Library Technology Reports 54.6 (2018): 21.

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