virtual reality (VR) or virtual environment (VE), computer-generated environment with and within which people can interact. The advantage of VR is that it can immerse people in an environment that would normally be unavailable due to cost, safety, or perception restrictions. A successful VR environment offers users immersion, navigation, and manipulation. VR encompasses a range of interactive computer environments, from text-oriented on-line forums and multiplayer games to complex simulations that combine audio; video, animation, or three-dimensional graphics; and scent. Some of the more realistic effects are achieved using a helmetlike apparatus with tiny computer screens, one in front of each eye and each giving a slightly different view so as to mimic stereoscopic vision. Sensors attached to the participant (e.g., gloves, bodysuit, footwear) pass on his or her movements to the computer, which changes the graphics accordingly to give the participant the feeling of movement through the scene. Computer-generated physical feedback adds a "feel" to the visual illusion, and computer-controlled sounds and odors reinforce the virtual environment. Other VR systems, such as flight simulators flight simulator, device providing a controlled environment in which a flight trainee can experience conditions approximating those of actual flight. A simulator generally consists of an enclosure housing a working replica of the interior of the cockpit of an
..... Click the link for more information. , use larger displays and enclosed environments to create an illusion. Less-complicated systems for personal computers personal computer (PC), small but powerful computer primarily used in an office or home without the need to be connected to a larger computer. PCs evolved after the development of the microprocessor made possible the hobby-computer movement of the late 1970s, when
..... Click the link for more information. manipulate an image of three-dimensional space on a computer screen. In a virtual network network, in computing, two or more computers connected for the purpose of routing, managing, and storing rapidly changing data. A local area network (LAN), which is restricted by distances of up to one mile, and a metropolitan area network (MAN), which is restricted
..... Click the link for more information. many users can be immersed in the same simulation, each perceiving it from a personal point of view. VR is used in some electronic games electronic game, device or computer program that provides entertainment by challenging a person's eye-hand coordination or mental abilities. Made possible by the development of the microprocessor , electronic games are marketed in various formats, such as hand-held
..... Click the link for more information. , in amusement-park attractions, in military exercises, and to simulate construction designs. Experimental and envisioned uses include education, industrial design, surgical training, and art.

Bibliography

See H. Rheingold, Virtual Reality (1991); R. A. Earnshaw, Virtual Reality Systems (1993); L. C. Larijani, The Virtual Reality Primer (1994); J. Levy, Create Your Own Virtual Reality System (1995); D. N. Chorafas and H. Steinmann, Virtual Reality: Practical Applications in Business and Industry (1995).

virtual reality

Use of computer modeling and simulation to enable a person to interact with an artificial three-dimensional visual or other sensory environment. A computer-generated environment simulates reality by means of interactive devices that send and receive information and are worn as goggles, headsets, gloves, or body suits. The illusion of being in the created environment (telepresence) is accomplished by motion sensors that pick up the user's movements and adjust his or her view accordingly, usually in real time. The basis of the technology emerged in the 1960s in simulators that taught how to fly planes, drive tanks, shoot artillery, and generally perform in combat. It came of commercial age in the 1980s and is now used in games, exhibits, and aerospace simulators. It has potential for use in many fields, including entertainment, medicine and biotechnology, engineering, design, and marketing.

An artificial reality that projects the user into a 3D space generated by the computer. A virtual reality system uses stereoscopic goggles that provide the 3D imagery and some sort of tracking device, which may be the goggles themselves for tracking head and body movement, or a "data glove" that tracks hand movements. The glove lets you point to and manipulate computer-generated objects displayed on tiny monitors inside the goggles.

Serious Work or Entertainment
Virtual reality (VR) can be used to create an illusion of reality or imagined reality and is used both for amusement as well as serious training. Flight simulators for training airplane pilots and astronauts were the first form of this technology, which provided a very realistic and very expensive simulation.

Spatially Immersive Environments
Virtual reality has other variants. Spatially immersive displays use multi-sided rooms that you walk into, and an "immersive theater" or "immersive wall" uses a large flat or curved screen (8-24' long) that completely fills your peripheral vision. Desktop virtual reality (desktop VR) uses a computer to play games and view environments that you move around in, although they lack the 3D reality of true VR systems. See head mounted display, 6DOF, cyberspace, VRML, mixed reality, virtual world and Second Life.

Virtual Reality at the Dentist
In this application, the child is looking through the goggles and manipulating the scenes that he sees with a game controller. (Image courtesy of I-O Display Systems, www.i-glasses.com)

Spatially Immersive Systems
Fakespace Systems' CAVE products are used to simulate a VR environment for various purposes, such as testing the design of a new building (train station above) or learning how to operate a Caterpillar bulldozer (below). In the latter, the steering wheel on the left meets the real steering wheel on the right in virtual space. CAVE was developed by the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois in the early 1990s. (Images courtesy of Fakespace Systems Inc., www.fakespacesystems.com)

virtual reality - (VR)

1. Computer simulations that use 3D graphics and devices such as the data glove to allow the user to interact with the simulation.

2. A form of network interaction incorporating aspects of role-playing games, interactive theater, improvisational comedy, and "true confessions" magazines. In a virtual reality forum (such as Usenet's news:alt.callahans newsgroup or the MUD experiments on Internet and elsewhere), interaction between the participants is written like a shared novel complete with scenery, "foreground characters" that may be personae utterly unlike the people who write them, and common "background characters" manipulable by all parties. The one iron law is that you may not write irreversible changes to a character without the consent of the person who "owns" it, otherwise, anything goes.

See bamf, cyberspace.