Hey guys, it’s Jonathan Strickland with
HowStuffWorks.
I’m here at FutureX Live, a conference all
about virtual and augmented reality.
It’s thrown by Moxie, it’s here in Atlanta
and it’s the perfect opportunity to address
some big questions like what is virtual reality,
how does it work and why should you care.
Consider this VR 101.
At its most basic level, virtual reality is
an experience generated by a computer meant
to stand in for the physical reality around
us.
Computer scientist Jaron Lanier is often credited
with coining the term Virtual Reality in the
1980s, but the discipline of VR is a collection
of ideas that date back nearly a century.
At the heart of virtual reality are two concepts:
immersion and interaction.
Let’s break down what each one means.
Immersion refers to your sense of presence
within a virtual world.
How real does it seem?
Do you have a fear of heights?
No but I’m sure I’ll develop one.
We judge our experience through the information
we gather through our senses.
If that information is consistent, reliable
and convincing, our brains accept it as reality.
And the more senses you can engage, the better.
With virtual reality, we’re usually talking
about sight and sound.
But some VR setups also engage our sense of
touch in what’s called haptic feedback.
As for interactivity, that’s all about to
what extent you can affect the virtual world
around you.
Are you a passive audience, or can you interact
with the objects, creatures, people and environment?
Generally speaking, the more interactive the
experience, the more convincing it is.
Both immersion and interaction create the
illusion that you’re in a different world.
That illusion can be broken if the experience
suffers from technical issue, lag (which we
call latency in VR), or limitations in what
you are allowed to do once you’re in the
VR world.
One of the most common elements in VR rigs
is the head mounted display or HMD.
An HMD contains sensors such as accelerometers
and gyroscopes to track movement and orientation.
When you turn your head, the sensors track
the movement, send the information to the
VR software, which then determines the view
you should see in the HMD’s monitors.
The whole thing has to happen very fast or
you get a swimmy lag effect.
This is one of the reasons some people feel
motion sickness after experiencing VR for
a few minutes.
It wasn’t until recently that computer processors
became fast enough to limit lag to imperceptible
levels.
There are lots of options for VR sets out
on the market today.
Whether they are a success or regarded as
just a passing fad remains to be seen.
Perhaps one day we’ll build something similar
to what VR pioneer Ivan Sutherland described
as “the ultimate display” in a 1965 paper.
This hypothetical display would be a room
in which a computer could generate everything
you see, hear, smell, taste and touch.
The computer would be able to create physical
objects out of pure matter, creating the ultimate
in virtual experiences.
It sounds a lot like Star Trek’s holodeck.
The whole thing was a thought experiment.
We’ll probably never make anything quite
that sophisticated.
So for now, it’s time to strap on the headset.
And that wraps up VR 101.
Now you know what virtual reality is all about
and you also know why immersion is such a
big deal.
Big thanks to Moxie for having us out for
FutureX Live, being around the cutting edge
of VR has me really excited and I can’t
wait to see what’s next.
