04-02-2010, 11:33 PM
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VIRTUAL REALITY
Virtual Reality (VR) is an environment that is simulated by a computer. Most virtual reality environments are primarily visual experiences, displayed either on a computer screen or through special stereoscopic displays, but some simulations include additional sensory information, such as sound through speakers or headphones. Some advanced and experimental systems have included limited tactile, haptic force feedback. Users can interact with a virtual environment either through the use of standard input devices such as a keyboard and mouse, or through multimodal devices such as a wired glove, polhemus boom arm, and/or omnidirectional treadmill. The simulated environment can be similar to the real world, for example, simulations for pilot or combat training, or it can differ significantly from reality, as in VR games. In practice, it is currently very difficult to create a high-fidelity virtual reality experience, due largely to technical limitations on processing power and image resolution. However, those limitations are expected to eventually be overcome as processor and imaging technologies become more powerful and cost-effective over time.
Background
Terminology
The origin of the term "virtual reality" is uncertain though it has been credited to The Judas Mandala, a 1982 novel by Damien Broderick where the context of use is somewhat different from that defined above. A related term coined by Myron Krueger, "artificial reality", has been in use since the 1970s. "Cyberspace" dates to the 1982 short story "Burning Chrome" and 1984 novel Neuromancer by the cyberpunk author William Gibson. The concept of virtual reality was popularized in mass media by movies as The Lawnmower Man (and others mentioned below), and the VR research boom of the 1990s was motivated in part by the non-fiction book Virtual Reality by Howard Rheingold. The book served to demystify the heretofore niche area, making it more accessible to less technical researchers and enthusiasts, with an impact similar to what his book The Virtual Community had on virtual community research lines closely related to VR.
While virtual reality originally denoted a fully immersive system, the term has since been used to describe systems lacking wired gloves etc., such as those driven by Virtual Reality Modelling Language(VRML) and X3D on the World Wide Web and occasionally even text-based interactive systems such as MOOs or MUDs. Non-immersive virtual reality uses a normal monitor, and the person manipulates the virtual environment using a keyboard, a mouse, a joystick or a similar input device. The term was used in the early 1990s to denote 3D computer and video games, particularly first-person shooters.
VR Timeline
Morton Heilig wrote in the 1950s of an "Experience Theater" that could encompass all the senses in an effective manner, thus drawing the viewer into the onscreen activity. He built a prototype of his vision dubbed the Sensorama in 1962, along with five short films to be displayed in it while engaging multiple senses (sight, sound, smell, and touch). Predating digital computing, the Sensorama was a mechanical device, which reportedly still functions today. In 1968, Ivan Sutherland, with the help of his student Bob Sproull, created what is widely considered to be the first Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality (AR) Head Mounted Display (HMD) system. It was primitive both in terms of user interface and realism, and the HMD to be worn by the user was so heavy it had to be suspended from the ceiling, and the graphics comprising the virtual environment were simple wireframe rooms. The formidable appearance of the device inspired its name, The Sword of Damocles. Also notable among the earlier hypermedia and virtual reality systems was the Aspen Movie Map, which was created at MIT in 1977. The program was a crude virtual simulation of Aspen, Colorado in which users could wander the streets in one of three modes: summer, winter, and polygons. The first two were based on photographs “ the researchers actually photographed every possible movement through the city's street grid in both seasons “ and the third was a basic 3-D model of the city. In the late 1980s the term "virtual reality" was popularized by Jaron Lanier, one of the modern pioneers of the field. Lanier had founded the company VPL Research (from "Virtual Programming Languages") in 1985, which developed and built some of the seminal "goggles n' gloves" systems of that decade.
Virtual Reality Technology
Head-Mounted Display (HMD)
The head-mounted display (HMD) was the first device providing its wearer with an immersive experience. Evans and Sutherland demonstrated a head-mounted stereo display already in 1965. It took more then 20 years before VPL Research introduced a commercially available HMD, the famous "Eye Phone" system (1989).
A head-mounted display (HMD):
A typical HMD houses two miniature display screens and an optical system that channels the images from the screens to the eyes, thereby, presenting a stereo view of a virtual world. A motion tracker continuously measures the position and orientation of the user's head and allows the image generating computer to adjust the scene representation to the current view. As a result, the viewer can look around and walk through the surrounding virtual environment.
To overcome the often uncomfortable intrusiveness of a head-mounted display, alternative concepts (e.g., BOOM and CAVE) for immersive viewing of virtual environments were developed.
BOOM
The BOOM (Binocular Omni-Orientation Monitor) from Fakes pace is a head-coupled stereoscopic display device. Screens and optical system are housed in a box that is attached to a multi-link arm. The user looks into the box through two holes, sees the virtual world, and can guide the box to any position within the operational volume of the device. Head tracking is accomplished via sensors in the links of the arm that holds the box.
The BOOM, a head-coupled display device:
CAVE
The CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment) was developed at the University of Illinois at Chicago and provides the illusion of immersion by projecting stereo images on the walls and floor of a room-sized cube. Several persons wearing lightweight stereo glasses can enter and walk freely inside the CAVE. A head tracking system continuously adjust the stereo projection to the current position of the leading viewer.
CAVE system (schematic principle):
Input Devices and other Sensual Technologies
A variety of input devices like data gloves, joysticks, and hand-held wands allow the user to navigate through a virtual environment and to interact with virtual objects. Directional sound, tactile and force feedback devices, voice recognition and other technologies are being employed to enrich the immersive experience and to create more "sensualized" interfaces.
A data glove allows for interactions with the virtual world:
Moving the steering wheel
IMMERSIVE AND NON IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGY
Characteristics of Immersive VR
The unique characteristics of immersive virtual reality can be summarized as follows:
¢ Head-referenced viewing provides a natural interface for the navigation in three-dimensional space and allows for look-around, walk-around, and fly-through capabilities in virtual environments.
¢ Stereoscopic viewing enhances the perception of depth and the sense of space.
¢ The virtual world is presented in full scale and relates properly to the human size.
¢ Realistic interactions with virtual objects via data glove and similar devices allow for manipulation, operation, and control of virtual worlds.
¢ The convincing illusion of being fully immersed in an artificial world can be enhanced by auditory, haptic, and other non-visual technologies.
¢ Networked applications allow for shared virtual environments (see below).
Shared Virtual Environments
In the example illustrated below, three networked users at different locations (anywhere in the world) meet in the same virtual world by using a BOOM device, a CAVE system, and a Head-Mounted Display, respectively. All users see the same virtual environment from their respective points of view. Each user is presented as a virtual human (avatar) to the other participants. The users can see each other, communicated with each other, and interact with the virtual world as a team.
Non-immersive VR
Today, the term 'Virtual Reality' is also used for applications that are not fully immersive. The boundaries are becoming blurred, but all variations of VR will be important in the future. This includes mouse-controlled navigation through a three-dimensional environment on a graphics monitor, stereo viewing from the monitor via stereo glasses, stereo projection systems, and others. Apple's QuickTime VR, for example, uses photographs for the modeling of three-dimensional worlds and provides pseudo look-around and walk-through capabilities on a graphics monitor.
Virtual Reality Modeling Language
Most exciting is the ongoing development of VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) on the World Wide Web. In addition to HTML (HyperText Markup Language), that has become a standard authoring tool for the creation of home pages, VRML provides three-dimensional worlds with integrated hyperlinks on the Web. Home pages become home spaces. The viewing of VRML models via a VRML plug-in for Web browsers is usually done on a graphics monitor under mouse-control and, therefore, not fully immersive. However, the syntax and data structure of VRML provide an excellent tool for the modeling of three-dimensional worlds that are functional and interactive and that can, ultimately, be transferred into fully immersive viewing systems. The current version VRML 2.0 has become an international ISO/IEC standard under the name VRML97.
VR-related Technologies
Other VR-related technologies combine virtual and real environments. Motion trackers are employed to monitor the movements of dancers or athletes for subsequent studies in immersive VR. The technologies of 'Augmented Reality' allow for the viewing of real environments with superimposed virtual objects. Telepresence systems (e.g., telemedicine, telerobotics) immerse a viewer in a real world that is captured by video cameras at a distant location and allow for the remote manipulation of real objects via robot arms and manipulators.
Applications
As the technologies of virtual reality evolve; the applications of VR become literally unlimited. It is assumed that VR will reshape the interface between people and information technology by offering new ways for the communication of information, the visualization of processes, and the creative expression of ideas.
Note that a virtual environment can represent any three-dimensional world that is either real or abstract. This includes real systems like buildings, landscapes, underwater shipwrecks, spacecrafts, archaeological excavation sites, human anatomy, sculptures, crime scene reconstructions, solar systems, and so on. Of special interest is the visual and sensual representation of abstract systems like magnetic fields, turbulent flow structures, molecular models, mathematical systems, auditorium acoustics, stock market behavior, population densities, information flows, and any other conceivable system including artistic and creative work of abstract nature. These virtual worlds can be animated, interactive, shared, and can expose behavior and functionality.
Real and abstract virtual worlds (Michigan Stadium, Flow Structure):
Useful applications of VR include training in a variety of areas (military, medical, equipment operation, etc.), education, design evaluation (virtual prototyping), architectural walk-through, human factors and ergonomic studies, simulation of assembly sequences and maintenance tasks, assistance for the handicapped, study and treatment of phobias (e.g., fear of height), entertainment, and much more.
Impact
There has been increasing interest in the potential social impact of new technologies, such as virtual reality (as may be seen in utopian literature, within the social sciences, and in popular culture). Perhaps most notably, Mychilo Stephenson Cline, in his book, Power, Madness, and Immortality: The Future of Virtual Reality, argues that virtual reality will lead to a number of important changes in human life and activity. He argues that:
¢ Virtual reality will be integrated into daily life and activity and will be used in very human ways.
¢ Techniques will be developed to influence human behavior, interpersonal communication, and cognition (i.e., virtual genetics).
¢ As we spend more and more time in virtual space, there will be an gradual migration to virtual space, resulting in important changes in economics, worldview, and culture.
¢ The design of virtual environments may be used to extend basic human rights into virtual space, to promote human freedom and well-being, and to promote social stablity as we move from one stage in socio-political development to the next.
Public Perception
The general publicâ„¢s fascination and expectations of the Virtual Reality field and applications have been greatly influenced by the coverage it has received in the mass media (see Mass Media section below). The high expectations raised from the coverage, and from movies such as The Lawnmower Man have led to disappointment and ambivalence concerning VR and its value to the individual. VRâ„¢s success in the entertainment marketplace has been uneven at best, in part driven by disappointment with the reality of virtual reality versus the mass media notions and because the cost still after decades is nearly prohibitive for immersive equipment owners, forcing them to pass the cost onto the users of the equipmentâ€and the experience using contemporary VR equipment still has not demonstrated it is superior to satisfaction gained from other entertainment alternatives of similar or lesser cost.
To date, the exceptions in the public sector have been theme parks and similar venues and video gaming (with a population willing to engage with the imaginary environments on the developers' terms). However, the public seems more than willing to embrace VR as a common media, provided the experience provided matches up to tremendously high expectations created by illusions of what VR could be provided by movies and television alongside actual news coverage. For the technology to work well enough to support a business model, it must break through the "novelty barrier" with a killer application to commoditize the industry. With the goal of ideal simulated reality itself possibly unattainable, virtual reality technologies have found their best success in industry where they line up with pre-existing business needs. To be able to mock up the physical world with relatively high fidelity is difficult but technically feasible, to be able to mock up a personâ„¢s perception/imagination to the same level is a task far more complex.
Mass Media
Mass media has been a great advocate and perhaps a great hindrance to its development over the years. During the research boom of the late 1980s into the 1990s the news mediaâ„¢s prognostication on the potential of VR--and potential overexposure in publishing the predictions of anyone who had one (whether or not that person had a true perspective on the technology and its limits)--built up the expectations of the technology so high as to be impossible to achieve under the technology then or any technology to date. Entertainment media reinforced these concepts with furturistic imagery many generations beyond contemporary capabilities.
Fiction Books
Many science fiction books and movies have imagined characters being "trapped in virtual reality". The first modern work to use this idea was Daniel F. Galouye's novel Simulacron-3, which was made into a German teleplay titled Welt am Draht ("World on a Wire"). Other science fiction books have promoted the idea of virtual reality as a partial, but not total, substitution for the misery of reality (in the sense that a pauper in the real world can be a prince in VR), or have touted it as a method for creating breathtaking virtual worlds in which people would regularly live, play and socialize. One of the best examples of both ideas was Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash. However, in 2003, Stephenson admitted to Wired magazine that Snow Crash was a "failed prophecy." An early short science fiction story - "The Veldt" - about an all too real 'virtual reality" was included in the 1951 book The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury and may be the first fictional work to fully describe the concept.
Television
The first major television series to showcase virtual reality was Star Trek: The Next Generation. They featured the holodeck, a virtual reality facility, generally on star ships and star bases, that enabled its users to recreate and experience anything they wanted. One difference from current virtual reality technology, however, was that replicators and transporters were used to actually create and place objects in the holodeck, rather than relying solely on the illusion of physical objects, as is done today.
Motion Pictures
Steven Lisberger's film TRON was the first mainstream Hollywood picture to explore the idea, which was popularized more recently by the Wachowski brothers in 1999's The Matrix. The Matrix was significant in that it presented virtual reality and reality as often overlapping, and sometimes indistinguishable. Cyberspace became something that most movies completely misunderstood, as seen in The Lawnmower Man and Hackers (film). Also, the British comedy Red Dwarf utilized in several episodes the idea that life (or at least the life seen on the show) is a virtual reality game. This idea was also used in Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over.
The popular classic of The Matrix is about the world of the future, where most of the human species is kept docile by a race of sentient machines (which humankind created) in a "Virtual Reality" computer program called The Matrix. The machines use their human population as energy generators feeding off them as their brains act out their lives completely oblivious of the real world while inside the Matrix.
Games
In the Mage: The Ascension role-playing game, the mage tradition of the Virtual Adepts is presented as the real creators of VR. The Adepts' ultimate objective is to move into virtual reality, scrapping their physical bodies in favour of improved virtual ones. Also, the .hack series centers around a virtual reality video game.
Marketing
A side effect of the chic image that has been cultivated for Virtual Reality in the media is that advertising and merchandise have been associated with VR over the years to take advantage of the buzz. This is often seen in product tie-ins with cross-media properties, especially gaming licenses, with varying degrees of success. The NES Power Glove from the 1980s was an early example. Marketing ties between VR and video games are not to be unexpected, given that much of the progress in 3D computer graphics and virtual environment development (traditional hallmarks of VR) has been driven by the gaming industry over the last decade.
Challenges
Virtual reality has been heavily criticized for being an inefficient method for navigating non-geographical information. At present, the idea of ubiquitous computing is very popular in user interface design, and this may be seen as a reaction against VR and its problems. In reality, these two kinds of interfaces have totally different goals and are complementary. The goal of ubiquitous computing is to bring the computer into the user's world, rather than force the user to go inside the computer. The current trend in VR is actually to merge the two user interfaces to create a fully immersive and integrated experience. See simulated reality for a discussion of what might have to be considered if a flawless virtual reality technology was possible.
Virtual Reality In Medicine
Computer modelling and simulation have become increasingly important in many scientific and technological disciplines owing to the wealth of computational power. Calculation of the behaviour of these computational models is increasingly replacing experiments on real world objects for example, in the car industry (tests based on simulated crashes) or in the development of nuclear weapons and is becoming an indispensable tool in the development of new products and procedures.
Likewise, the development of techniques for acquiring data (for example, medical imaging) has enabled the easy generation of high resolution copies of real world objects from the computer's memory. The development of imaging technologies, such as magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, and ultrasound, has made the acquisition of highly detailed anatomical and partially functional models of three dimensional human anatomies a routine component of daily clinical practice.
For a long time the examination of, and interaction with, these computational models were reserved for specialists who were able to understand the limited representation of data offered by computer programs. In the case of medical imaging the mental reconstruction of three dimensional anatomical objects from slices of images in cross section, as usually presented on a light box or a computer screen, is not a natural cognitive ability of humans. Radiologists need intensive training and extensive experience to cope with this task.
Virtual reality technology aims at closing the gap between the capability of present technology to acquire images and properties and then to calculate the behaviour of virtual objects, and the ability to observe and interact with them. The ultimate goal is to allow the presentation of virtual objects to all of the human senses in a way identical to their natural counterpart. In some applications real and virtual objects need to be integrated making it necessary to present and manipulate them simultaneously in a single scene, leading to the development of hybrid systems referred to as augmented reality systems
Medical applications
In the past decade medical applications of virtual reality technology have been rapidly developing, and the technology has changed from a research curiosity to a commercially and clinically important area of medical informatics technology. Research and development activity is well summarized by the yearly "Medicine Meets Virtual Reality" meetings, and the commercialization of the technology is already at an advanced stage.
Diagnostics
Initially, algorithms for graphical rendering of anatomy have been used to provide support for three dimensional organ reconstructions from radiological cross sections. For the clinician this method of visualizations provided a more natural view of a patient's anatomy without losing the see through capability of the radiologist.
Virtual endoscopy techniques (such as virtual colonoscopy or bronchoscopy) based on the virtual reconstruction and visualizations of individual patient anatomy are rapidly developing. Owing to the potential benefits of patient comfort and cost effectiveness virtual endoscopic procedures could replace real endoscopic investigations in the foreseeable future in some areas of diagnosis. The most impressive development has been demonstrated in virtual colonoscopy as a screening tool for colon polyps and cancer and which is currently in the clinical validation phase.
Preoperative planning
In many areas today the use of computer models to plan and optimise surgical interventions preoperatively is part of daily clinical practice. In some areas, such as conformal radiotherapy and stereotactic neurosurgery, treatment is not possible without preoperative planning with the aid of a computer. In other areas, such as craniofacial neurosurgery and open neurosurgery, the possibility of planning surgery on a computer screen, trying out different surgical approaches with realistic prediction of the outcome (for example, postoperative appearance of the patient), and planning individualised custom made implants have substantial impact on the success and safety of the intervention.
Education and training systems
Education and training is one of the most promising application areas for virtual reality technologies. Computerized three dimensional atlases presenting different aspects of the anatomy, physiology, and pathology as a unified teaching atlas are about to revolutionize the teaching of anatomy to medical students and the general public.
Systems based on virtual reality offer a unique opportunity for the training of professional surgical skills on a wide scale and in a repeatable manner, in a way similar to the routine training of pilots. Contrary to the preoperative planning systems, which require an extreme level of accurate registration and alignment of tissue (data fusion), medical and surgical education and training rely more on high fidelity visualization and realistic immersion into the virtual scene than on the precise data fusion of the applied models with the specific anatomy of a patient.
The rapid adoption of minimally invasive surgical techniques is one of the major driving forces in the development of surgical trainers. The extreme limitations placed on visual and manipulative freedom, including the loss of tactile feedback and the unusual hand-eye coordination makes extensive specialized training for such interventions necessary. Virtual reality is the technology of choice with the greatest potential for future development, and a rapidly growing number of commercial units is becoming available.
Image guided surgery
Even the best preoperative planning is of limited use if its implementation in the operating room is not guaranteed. Whereas traditionally these plans are transformed mentally by the surgeon during the intervention, computer assistance and virtual reality technology can substantially contribute to the precise execution of preoperative plans.
Image guided surgery is the typical application area where virtual objects (data from the preoperative image and the anatomical objects extracted from them) and real objects (the patient and the surgical tools) must be merged into a single unified scene, calling for augmented reality techniques. The major technical issue to be solved is the registration of the real and virtual objects that is, to make the preoperative data coincide with the actual patient anatomy and the tracking of the movement of real objects such as the surgical instruments.
Although still needing substantial research image guided surgery is one of the major development areas today, with several systems in routine clinical practice, especially in orthopaedics and neurosurgery.
Other application areas
Virtual reality offers promising solutions in many other areas of medical care, where the immersion into a virtual world can help the patient, the physician, and the developer of the technology. Several systems have been developed and tested for physical or mental rehabilitation and for supporting mental health therapy by exposing the patient to appropriate experience or illusion. Finally, virtual reality based technology plays a major role in telemedicine, ranging from remote diagnosis to complex teleinterventions.
Virtual reality based technology is a new but rapidly growing area in medicine, which will revolutionise health care in the foreseeable future. The impact of this technology is just beginning to be recognised owing to methodological, technical, and manufacturing breakthroughs in the past few years. It must, however, be emphasised that the technology is simply a tool and that the other critical areas of content development and physician-patient relationship must be incorporated into the new systems.
Virtual Reality as a Social Evolution or Society Threat?
It's frustrating knowing that we currently possess the technology to to make some really far out VR apps but not seeing VR widely distributed. I can't wait for this stuff to evolve, really, it's a fascinating science/technology.
Like all great technologies, there's a monumental duality about it.
One the one hand, VR technology can represent the next step in the sociological evolution of humanity. A world where people can connect with each other instantaneously (virtual "teleporation" actually) on a quasi-physical level (at least until haptic feedback develops) and a world where every virtual whim of mankind can be satisfied for the cost of pennies.
On the other hand, VR could be greatest single threat to society since the invention of the television. I can envision an entire modernized civilization leaving the "real" world for the "virtual" one. A nation of empty streets, empty schools, empty churches as family spend there entire days plugged eerily into a VR machine very much like the Matrix while automated devices feed us, clean us, and keep our muscles from atrophying (very much like the Matrix). I can't help but feel that this will be the ultimate outcome of VR technology.
Of course, there are those that may argue that the transition of humanity from a corporeal being into a string a digital data might the natural evolution of mankind, but I shall reserve judgment...
PRESENTATION SUMMARY
Introduction
. Imagine that there is a reality in virtual, you can do every thing in it, you can live in it spend your whole life in it from actual and factual point of view there is nothing real. The concept of virtual reality comes from dream basically. When someone saw a dream, everything appears real to your brain, sometimes you are trying to save yourself and your are moving your hands and legs your body got sweat and you are even talking but that world of dream only exists in your brain. Nothing real is there. But the fact is that your brain misunderstood it and dream deceives your brain by giving it illusion that every thing is real. As we all know that brain controls the whole body so it gives orders to the different organs which are concerned
For example,
Let us suppose that someone is seeing a dream that a lion is in front of him and he will kill him. Now the brain thinks that every thing is real so the brain orders the leg to move and run as fast as possible. Similarly the brain orders the hands to move. Brain also orders the skin to sweat and it also orders the skin to sweat and it also orders heart to beat fast because of fear. Now if we consider the actual and factual position that there is no lion in real and everything is illusion but brain is interpreting that everything is real. So from here the concept of virtual reality comes. The above example shows us that we can deceive the brain by moving it to the reality which is virtual.
Human Internal Messaging System
Basically the brain works on messaging system. The message goes to the brain, it decodes the message and the appropriate function executes. Let me give you an example in very simple words to explain the messaging system. Let us suppose that someone closes his eyes and we put two glasses of water in front of him, one contains hot water and one glass contains cold water. Now we ask the person to touch tha water of both glasses one by one. He touches the hot water and certain message goes from fingers to brain say message is 04, now he touches the cold water and certain message goes from his fingers to brain say message is o8.
Now brain has certain data stored in it and it tries to interpret the data. Suppose it is stored in brain that for message 04, thing is hot and for message 08 thing is cold.
So message is 04, so brain compares it with data stored in brain, so brain come to know that the thing is hot and gives message to fingers to give a feeling of burn according to the intensity of hotness.
So this is how message is moved from fingers to brain, interpreted there and then again appropriate message is moved to fingers from brain. Now student no. 3 will come and explain you the technology of virtual reality.
Technology
Technology is very complicated in terms of functionality but very simple in terms of usage its apparatus contains.
1. Goggles
2. Pads for different parts of body
In goggles there are two TV screens instead of glasses. These TV screens are made from finest technology to give the image close to reality. The pads basically for the body, we fix pads with body, then we switch on the TV screens and the person wearing the goggles can see world in it. The world is so real that the brain moves into it and think that it is real.
Example in video games, there are beautiful cities, gorgeous girls, handsome boys, deep forests, guns etc. there is complete world in video games but that world does not exist in real but it exist only on screen.
Now if we make the same world to appear on the screens of the goggles and the graphics used in that virtual world are as real as the graphics and colors of our real world. Then the brain thinks that the world is real and it will start functioning according to it. Now let me give you an example which will explain you the functionality of goggles and pads.
Suppose that in virtual world of goggles we see a table. Now the brain is thinking that it is table now if touch the table you know that actually there is no table but the person wearing the goggles and having pads fixed in his body will feel the table. You will be wondering how.
The person will feel it because of pads. The pads on his fingers will give the feeling of hardness of wood and also its stuff. The fingers gives the message of the feeling it is getting and then the message goes to brain and brain interpret it gives the body a feeling that it is table. Now actually there is no table but goggles and pads fool our brain by giving it illusion that it is table.
This is how virtual reality works. Similarly death of a person can occur who is moved into virtual reality as we have seen in the film THE MATRIX.
Commercial Examples
Usage of Virtual Reality in a Medical Field
Virtual reality based technology is a new but rapidly growing area in medicine, which will revolutionize health care in the foreseeable future. In the past decade medical applications of virtual reality technology had been rapidly developing, and the technology has changed from a research to a commercial
Doctors getting trained in Virtual Hospital
Education and training is one of the most promising application areas for virtual reality technologies. Medical students will be able to learn real world practical problem in VR world. For example Medical students can operate a patient who will be dieing due to a certain disease in a VR world and even medical students can get knowledge about emergencies an accident.
Image Guided Diagnosis
Virtual Reality system will allow physicians to view data such as MRI(magnetic resonance imaging) scans during a surgery to aid in the proper positioning of medical instrumentation.
Aeronautical Training Programs
Virtual Reality is playing an important role in Aeronautics which is very helpful for Army, Air force, Navy etc.
Flight stimulators
With the help of flight stimulators which are based on virtual reality we can train the pilots.
Virtual Reality Parachute Training
Virtual Reality Programs are also used in parachute training and it is only due this technology that life risk can be totally avoided.
Aircraft Designing Programs
Virtual Reality has done the job easy for the aircraft designers. They can easily check very angle and the flow of air on the body of the aircraft.
World Tour
You can explore the every corner of the world with the help of virtual reality technology. Just imagine for a moment that you are sitting in your house located in Lahore and you are enjoying visit to New York and if you do not like it then in less than a second approximately with a speed of light you can go to Dubai and if in Dubai there is a hot sunny day of June then you can enjoy snow fall just with a click of a button.
Virtual Teaching Programs
A student can get education from the professors at Howard University and can enjoy the campus and environment of Howard University. A teacher can improve their teaching skills by presenting lectures in a virtual reality classroom of Howard University which provides the same environment like real classrooms.
Virtual Reality as a social evolution or society threat?
It's frustrating knowing that we currently possess the technology to make some really far out Virtual Reality applications but not seeing VR widely distributed. I can't wait for this stuff to evolve; really, it's a fascinating technology.
Like all great technologies, there's a monumental duality about it.
Virtual Reality technology can represent the next step in the sociological evolution of humanity. A world where you can do anything, you can enjoy everything in virtual world which you cannot even dream in this real world, like you can enjoy the latest model of Mercedes without spending any money and a world where every virtual desire of mankind can be satisfied for the cost of pennies.
On the other hand, Virtual Reality could be greatest single threat to society. Imagine an entire modernized civilization leaving the "real" world for the "virtual" one. A nation of empty streets, empty schools as family spend there entire days plugged into a Virtual Reality Machine Every body will be living in their own world and living their life happily without any tensions & sorrows and above all that world will be according to your taste.
Above all it is concluded that the virtual reality is acting a social evolution or society depends on the ways it can be used. If you enjoy a drive of Mercedes in virtual reality it will cause a loss to Mercedes Company and leads to a loss of countryâ„¢s economy. If you use it in a way like Virtual Training System and in the field of medical.
