Virtual Reality 101
You might never land your foot on the moon, fly a spaceship, drive a formula one car, or sing a song with Eminem. But with virtual reality, you might be able to do all these things and many more without even going out of your home. Unlike real reality which is the world we live in, virtual reality means simulating experience that can be similar or completely different from the real world. Previously virtual reality is mostly used for games and entertainment, but now it is also commonly used for medical studies, military training, driving schools, training airline pilots, and many more.
What is Virtual Reality ?
Virtual reality (VR) is an artificial environment that is created by using hardware devices and software of a computer to experience and interact with a 3D world by putting on a head-mounted display (HMD) and a special type of gloves. HMD keeps a track on how eyes move and the data gloves sensor the movement of hands to experience changing viewpoints and provide the sensation of touch.
History of Virtual Reality
The concept goes back as far as the nineteenth century with 360-degree panoramic paintings. By the early 1900s, a form of virtual reality was used for flight simulation, imitating the turbulence and disturbance associated with flights to train pilots in a safe and effective manner. 1960, Morton Heilig invented a head-mounted display device and made its first appearance. Then, designers focused on professionally geared applications in the 1970s and 1980s. By the 2000s with the advancements in smartphone technology, many mobile phone users have the ability to use VR from their phones.
Advantages and Application of Virtual Reality
With recent advancements, many sectors have been adapting virtual reality making it more immersive and affordable. The benefits of virtual reality include training, education, entertainment, tourism and real estate, gaming, etc.
Training with Virtual Reality
In some sectors, virtual reality is used to train employees. With virtual reality, workforce training that was once too far to travel, expensive, safety concerns, and complex training scenarios have become vastly more practical, cost-effective, and safe in immersive simulation. Simulations to deliver training is one of the most effective training methods available today. Simulation-based training techniques, tools, and strategies are applied that mimic real-life use. Another advantage is the privacy in which the training can take place.
Education with Virtual Reality
Virtual reality with a unique student-friendly interface has brought a whole new concept in educational technology-more fun, exciting, and enjoyable which provides better information for the students to absorb than reading. Its technicality is extremely interesting, engaging, and motivating. It also allows the students to explore, travel, visit what they need to learn without leaving the room.
Tourism and Real Estate with Virtual Reality
Virtual reality became a perfect tool for tourism and real estate. Many travelling companies are adapting virtual reality and also making it effective. Travellers are looking to purchase experiences rather than products, and travelling companies give them a view of what they can expect in their tour right from the comfort of their homes. The views almost come alive as it rotates 360° viewing in any direction. A virtual tour also increases online bookings for hotels and restaurants.
To help a real estate with virtual reality, a client or investor can also see how the building will look and also will be able to walk around the building and explore the interior and the exterior design especially when the project is in the development stage.
Gaming with Virtual Reality
Until now, gaming meant spending hours staring at the screen but virtual reality acted as a game-changer in the gaming world. Compared to PC or console gaming, virtual reality gaming is all about realistic, immersive, and fun. The first attempts to use virtual reality in games were made in the mid-1980s. With virtual reality, a gamer can experience being in a three-dimensional environment and interact with the environment that allows the gamers to feel like they’re inside the game environment. The sensors record the way your hand moves with a data glove and feed the gamer back into the game to create appropriate on-screen responses and create a fully immersive experience.