May 2, 2023
Virtual reality: what it is and how it works
The new perspectives of the virtual
May 2, 2023
Virtual reality: what it is and how it works
The new perspectives of the virtual
Virtual Reality (VR) allows us to experience a given space no longer through the filter of a screen (or panel), large or small, but by immersing ourselves in a 3D environment through the use of a display device. Such a hardware device currently mostly consists of a visor-also called, albeit improperly, a helmet-that allows us to cover the entire viewing angle of our eyes in order to move through the virtual world, usually generated in computer graphics, as if we were moving inside a physical room.
Unlike augmented reality (Augmented Reality, or AR), which integrates additional elements to the surrounding environment in which the user finds himself, virtual reality presupposes a creation from scratch of the spaces within which one moves. What has just been highlighted facilitates understanding with respect to what the relationship is between the power of the hardware on which the software runs and the degree of immersion;however much in fact recreating reality is not the sole purpose of VR, it is undeniable that its raison d'être, especially at this stage, lies in the replication of familiar environments, with a degree of approximation as reduced as possible. In this sense, there are three types of experience.
- Non-Immersive: the classic example is that of Video Games, whose worlds are totally created in computer graphics, but without alienating the player from his own reality, of which he remains fully aware all the time, given the unique filter given by a rectangle or square, which is precisely the screen;
- Semi-Immersive: this type of VR tends to prepare specific conditions, similar to the realistic counterpart, in a mostly sectoral manner, as in the case of flight simulations referred to by aircraft pilots with a view to their training;
- Immersive: To have a fully immersive experience, we would have to be able to stimulate all five senses, which, at present, is still a distant scenario. Nonetheless, this definition is conventionally used in relation to experiences that involve a level of involvement otherwise inconceivable today, except precisely through the use of a viewer. In this case, the user enters another reality, unaware of his or her surroundings, as sight and often hearing in toto engage with the virtual space by which he or she is enveloped.
The concept of immersion, or immersiveness, however, does pass primarily through the visual component, but not entirely exclusively. Interaction with these virtual worlds, veritable boxes whose size varies according to intentions, is also governed by the degree of possibility one has in modifying them, even minimally. Indeed, there are worlds designed only to be explored, where others contemplate the possibility, on the part of the user, of performing certain actions, sometimes even trivial ones, such as pressing a button, picking up a telephone handset, picking up an object to observe it more closely, and so on.
To date, the tools that act as a filter between the user and the CG-generated world mostly consist of so-called controllers, similar to joysticks or gamepads, very similar to those that mediate the experience on video game consoles, especially in relation to their operation. Given the need to simulate motions, actions and situations as realistically as possible, so far the scheme adopted is very basic(e.g.press the X button to pick up the object and release the same button to drop what you have just picked up). Over time, especially in the video game field, new arrangements are being experimented with, which in the near future can certainly be implemented in almost all areas of VR application.
Virtual reality is in fact a tool, a language in continuous and sudden evolution, which requires software and solutions aimed at expanding its already vast horizons. From the perspective in which we find ourselves observing its developments, the only certainty we have is that we are in the early days of a field that more or less every six months records not infrequently surprising mutations. And, in spite of the natural changes and adjustments that will take place as we go along, it is highly probable that VR, or what will immediately spring from it, will play a far from marginal role in the sphere of human activities, hence of tomorrow's everyday life. All this we can already glimpse today.
