Most of us who are even a bit tech savvy are enthralled and amused by simple video games like subway surfer, temple run, NFS, pool, Farmville, strategy games and the like, and I believe, at one point of time or other, must have tried out our hands at it. I guess the revolution all began with Mario. Now its Xbox and all that stuff, all of them based on Virtual Reality (VR). So we can see that VR has always fascinated us and caught our attention in some way or the other. Some may be aware of the fact, some may not be.
Ever since the birth of the concept of Virtual Reality or computer simulated life, it has always been a subject of great fascination to many, right from the IT guys, engineers, animators and designers, to writers, and to even the musicians. Each one of these people tried to explore, express, develop and present the concept in their own way. Inspired by VR one of the famous musicians, Jamiroquai made a song “Virtual Insanity” the video of which, gained a lot of popularity. Based on it, now a video game has been developed. So many novels have been written and even movies have been made on this subject. It is also noticeable that many of us really look forward to going to movies which are released in 3-D, since, in such movies we get the feeling of being present inside that environment and watching everything around that is happening, from that perspective. It gives us a somewhat In Real Life (IRL) experience. Cinema halls (like 9-D) are being designed to give a complete IRL experience, where the viewers get to feel that they are in that world as part of it, experiencing stereoscopic visuals, three-dimensional sound, physical and sensory stimulation.
Virtual Reality is also referred to as immersive multimedia, virtual environment (VE), cyberspace (a word invented by science fiction author William Gibson), also this phenomenon has been defined by several other terms. The concept of VR has been in use since 1970 and the term can be traced back to 1938 in the book ‘The Theatre and Its Double’, written by the French playwright, poet, actor, and director Antonin Artaud.
What is Virtual Reality?
VR is an artificial environment created using computer technology. It is a simulated, three-dimensional world and a user experiences immersion, the feeling of being inside and a part of that world. He can also manipulate and explore the artificially created environment. Scientists, engineers, animators, film makers, software developers, and the computer freaks have designed great number of such environments, devices and applications, and are at it for even better results to replicate the In Real Life phenomenon and better experience.
VR includes three-dimensional images (stereoscopic display) plus additional sensory information (surround sound, motion effect, taste and smell), appearing to be life-sized from the user perspective. The technology has the ability to track a user's motions, particularly his head and eye movements, and likewise adjusts the images on the user's display to reflect the corresponding change in perspective. The user is also able to interact with his environment in meaningful ways.
The combination of a sense of immersion and interactivity is called telepresence. An effective VR experience causes you to become unaware of your real surroundings and focus on your existence inside the virtual environment.
The Virtual Reality Environment
The various attributes that are taken into consideration are Visuals, Touch (Haptic), Sound, Smell and Taste.
The sensory output from the virtual environment system should be synchronized in real time as a user explores the environment. If the environment incorporates 3-D sound, the user must be convinced that the sound’s orientation shifts in a natural way as he manoeuvres through the environment.
Sensory stimulation must be consistent if a user is to feel immersed and one within a virtual environment. If the virtual environment shows a perfectly still scene, then you can expect to feel a gentle breeze or detect the scent of flowers. Likewise, if the virtual environment puts you in the middle of a hurricane, you should expect to feel gale force winds. True immersive experience makes the user forget his real surroundings, effectively causing the computer to become a non entity.
Jonathan Steuer proposed two main components of immersion: depth of information and breadth of information. Depth of information refers to the amount and quality of data in the signals a user receives when interacting in a virtual environment like display’s resolution, the complexity of the environment’s graphics, the sophistication of the system’s audio output, etc. And breadth of information, the number of sensory dimensions simultaneously present. A virtual environment experience will be said to have a wide breadth of information, if it stimulates all your senses.
VR can be integrated into day to day activities too, and can have various significant uses like in explaining archaeology, history and heritage, education, fine arts, entertainment, training, demonstrations, therapy, etc. In fact VR simulators are already in use for training purposes in the defense, aeronautics, engineering and several other sectors. In addition VR can also influence human behavior like interpersonal communication and cognition. With the advent of computer and drastic development of the virtual space, we can notice that things are migrating to this platform, which may bring about a significant change in the perspective of economics, worldview and global culture too.
We all know that huge amount of information is being uploaded on the Internet every moment across the world, in the form of images, videos, audio and what not. Is it likely that with the advancement of technology and the development of virtual reality and artificial intelligence (AI), we will be able to transfer all our memory and consciousness through devices and software, digitized, into the Internet system before we die and then we start living into that digital space, developing and evolving ourselves through AI, and customizing and tailoring our environment from time to time as per our wish using VR inside the system, and live in this cyber world for ever, become immortals?
It is heard that MagicLeap is a mysterious and secretive start-up, Google invested in.
Check out one of their videos....
