Seminar on

Virtual
Reality
For a next generation

Guided By:- Prepared By:

B. B. Prajapati Gajera Jimesh G.

Department of IT (6020)

1
 Shantilal Shah Engineering College,
Bhavnagar.

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that Roll

th
no. of B.E Semester 8 I.T Class, has satisfactorily
completed his Term work of the subject
during the academic year 2010 and submitted on ________

Staff In Charge Head of

Department

Certified that this term work is accepted and assessed on

_________

Examiner Convener

2
 ABSTRACT

Virtual Reality (VR) has been claimed to provide a particularly

facilitatory environment for people with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in that
it offers structure, opportunities for repetition, affective engagement and, control of
the learning environment. Virtual reality shares the advantages of computer-based
learning, and has the additional advantage of making it more likely that the results
will generalise to real-word settings, in that it is a simulation of them. For concept
development and imagination training, VR offers its exclusive advantage of
making it possible to explicitly show imaginary/magic transformations of how an
object can act as if it were a different one, which is useful for training in both
abstract concepts and imagination understanding. This paper reviews the relevant
issues that need to be addressed when designing and experimentally assessing a
tool for this purpose, and concludes with the results of the more relevant research
outcomes obtained in this field.

INDEX

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 NO. CHAPTER PAGE NO.
1 Introduction 5
2 Concept of Virtual Reality 13
3 History 14
4 Types of VR 19
5 Virtual Reality Environment 26
6 How Virtual Reality Works 29
7 Applications of Virtual Reality 32
8 Future 47
9 Impact of Virtual Reality 54
10 Drawback of Virtual Reality 64
11 Conclusion 68
12 Bibliography 69

1. INTRODUCTION

What is Virtual Reality?

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 Virtual reality (VR) is a computer-simulated environment, whether that
environment is a simulation of the real world or an imaginary world. Most current
virtual reality environments are primarily visual experiences, displayed either on
a screener through special or stereoscopic displays, but some simulations include
additional sensory information, such as sound through speakers or headphones.

Some advanced, hectic systems now include tactile information, generally

known as force feedback, in medical and gaming applications. Users can interact
with a virtual environment or a virtual artifact (VA) either through the use of
standard input devices such as a keyboard and mouse, or
through multimodal devices such as a wired glove, the Polhemus boom arm,
and omni directional treadmill. The simulated environment can be similar to the
real world, for example, simulations for pilot or combat training, or it can differ

5
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, image resolution and communication bandwidth.
However, those limitations are expected to eventually be overcome as processor,
imaging and data communication technologies become more powerful and cost-
effective over time.
Virtual Reality is often used to describe a wide variety of applications,
commonly associated with its immersive, highly visual, 3D environments. The
development of CAD software, graphics hardware acceleration, head mounted
displays, database gloves and miniaturization have helped popularize the notion. In
the book The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality, Michael R. Heim identifies seven
different concepts of Virtual Reality: simulation, interaction, artificiality,
immersion, telepresence, full-body immersion, and network communication. The
definition still has a certain futuristic romanticism attached. People often identify
VR with Head Mounted Displays and Data Suits.

Virtual Reality (VR) is stimulating the user’s senses in such a way that a
computer generated world is experienced as real. In order to get a true illusion of
reality, it is essential for the user to have influence on this virtual environment.

Interaction with a virtual environment

All that has to be done in order to raise the illusion of being in or acting upon
a virtual world or virtual environment, is providing a simulation of the interaction
between human being and this real environment. This simulation is -at least- partly
attained by means of Virtual Reality interfaces connected to a computer. Basically,
a VR interface stimulates one of the human senses. This has not necessarily got to

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be as complex as it sounds, e.g. a PC-monitor stimulates the visual sense; a
headphone stimulates the auditory sense. Consequently, these two kinds of
interfaces are widely employed as Virtual Reality interfaces.

A haptic interface (FCS HapticMaster)

With the gustatory and olfactory sense left out of consideration, the hardest
part of simulating the interaction between human being and real environment is
stimulating the tactile sense and the proprioceptive system (kinesthetic sense). This
can be done using a so-called haptic interface. This is a device configured to
provide haptic information to a human. Just as a video interface allows the user to
see a computer generated scene, a haptic interface permits the user to “feel” it.
Haptic displays generate forces and motions, which are sensed through both touch
and kinesthesia.

On-body interface (Exoskeleton) Off-body interface (Phantom Desktop)

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 Currently, there are two main kinds of haptic interfaces, namely the off-body
interface and the on-body interface. The main difference is that the mass of the on-
body interface is supported by the operator while the off-body interface rests on the
floor. Nowadays, most commercially available devices are off-body.

The VR-lab

Virtual Reality technology can be usefully applied to a broad range of fields.

Within the Virtual Reality laboratory (VR-lab), the emphasis is mainly on two
different application areas:

- Virtual Reality as an engineering tool;

- Virtual Reality as a medical training tool.

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Virtual Reality as an engineering tool

In times of shortened product life cycles and increased product complexity,

more responsibility comes with designing a product. Research shows that about
80% of development costs and 70% of life cycle costs of a product are determined
during the conceptual phase of this process. This has led to the development of
Computer Aided Design (CAD) systems that enable the designer to evaluate the
geometry of his virtual design. At this stage of the design process, modifications
are still quite cheap, compared with changes to a physical prototype or, even
worse, the final product.

Geometric based design has reached a high level of maturity and

affordability. Many companies use it to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of
the design process. However, for evaluation of a design, the development of
physical prototypes still is necessary. This can be a very much time-consuming and
expensive process. Therefore, the designer should be able to define and test the
desired behaviour of a forthcoming product in such a way that the corresponding
geometry is created automatically by means of a CAD system. In order to come to
this ideal situation, it should be made possible for the designer to interact with a
virtual prototype as he would do with a physical one.

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 A Virtual Prototyping environment for gearboxes

The answer to more interactive CAD environments is found in the

application of Virtual Reality (VR) technology. It allows for interaction with a
virtual environment through multiple sensory channels. When VR technology is
applied instead of or as a supplement to development of physical prototypes, it is
called Virtual Prototyping (VP).

This is the process of using a virtual prototype, in lieu of a physical

prototype, for test and evaluation of specific characteristics of a candidate design.
A virtual prototype can be defined as a computer-based simulation of a system or
subsystem with a degree of functional realism comparable to a physical prototype.

A Virtual Assembly environment

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 A specific part of Virtual Prototyping is Virtual Assembly (VA). Usually,
during the design process, the assembly of a conceptual product is already taken
into account. Therefore, a detailed assembly procedure has to be developed without
the actual components present. In order to track down the potentially critical
operations and geometric conflicts during assembly, physical prototypes are
employed. Those physical prototypes have a number of drawbacks, e.g. costly and
time-consuming manufacturing, invariability in case of CAD model modifications
and immovability caused by mass or extensions. A solution to these problems lies
in the application of Virtual Assembly. By utilizing VR technology, various
assembly operations can be simulated. This way, not only potentially critical
operations and geometric conflicts during assembly can be detected, but also a
training tool for shop floor workers is provided.

Virtual Reality as a medical training tool

Patients nowadays expect the best treatment possible. The common way for
a surgeon student to acquire experience is by “on the fly” learning from an
experienced surgeon. This way of teaching has besides many good points some
drawbacks. Patients are needed for these educational purposes. These operations
take more time thus expensive extra operating-room time is used. The quality
depends highly on the educational skills of the experienced doctor.

Simulation of surgical incision

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 The aim of using Virtual Reality as a medical training tool is to offer
additional means to teach surgeon student. The goal is to halve the “on the fly”
learning in the operating room with real patients and to improve the quality of the
medical treatment.

Within a virtual operating room the student will be able to practice the
technical skills, the procedures and the theoretical background of operations and
diseases.

Currently the main research attention is paid to the development of this

virtual operating room. With two haptic devices, a 3D vision, a 3D model system
and an assessment program an environment will be created in which surgeon
students can improve and test their operating skills.

2. CONCEPT OF VIRTUAL REALITY

The term "artificial reality", coined by Myron Krueger, has been in use since
the 1970s, but the origin of the term "virtual reality" can be traced back to the
French playwright, poet, actor and director Antonin Artaud. In his seminal
book The Theatre and Its Double (1938), Artaud described theatre as "la réalite
virtuelle", a virtual reality "in which characters, objects, and images take on the
phantasmagoric force of alchemy's visionary internal dramas". It has been used
in The Judas Mandala, a 1982 science-fiction novel by Damien Broderick, where
the context of use is somewhat different from that defined above.

The earliest use cited by the Oxford English Dictionary is in a 1987 article
titled "Virtual reality", but the article is not about VR technology. The concept of
virtual reality was popularized in mass media by movies such as
Brainstorm (filmed mostly in 1981) and The Lawnmower Man (plus others
mentioned below). The VR research boom of the 1990s was accompanied by the
non-fiction book Virtual Reality (1991) by Howard Rheingold. The book served to

12
demystify the subject, making it more accessible to less technical researchers and
enthusiasts, with an impact similar to that which his book The Virtual
Community had on virtual community research lines closely related to
VR. Multimedia: from Wagner to Virtual Reality, edited by Randall Packer and
Ken Jordan and first published in 2001, explores the term and its history from an
avant-garde perspective. Philosophical implications of the concept of VR are
systematically discussed in the book Get Real: A Philosophical Adventure in
Virtual Reality (1998) by Philip Zhai, wherein the idea of VR is pushed to its
logical extreme and ultimate possibility. According to Zhai, virtual reality could be
made to have an ontological status equal to that of actual reality.

3. HISTORY

In the 1560s 360-degree art through panoramic murals were believed to have
started the idea of virtual reality. An example of this would be Baldassare Peruzzi's
piece titled, "Sala delle Prospettive".

In 1920s vehicle simulators were introduced. Morton Heilig wrote in the

1950s of an "Experience Theatre" 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). Around this time Douglas Englebart uses computer screens as both input
and output devices.

In 1966 Tom Furness introduces a visual flight stimulator for the Air Force.
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

13
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 model 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 "Visual
Programming Languages") in 1985, which developed and built some of the seminal
"goggles and gloves" systems of that decade.

The creation of virtual reality has been slow going, arduous and, up until the
mid-‘90s, largely theoretical in nature. In 1965 Ivan Sutherland, an ARPA scientist,
published his grand oeuvre “The Ultimate Display.” In his essay Sutherland
predicted all sorts of advances in computer technology: computer mice, drag and
drop interfaces and voice recognition software. But most importantly, he wrote
about the ultimate display—“a room within which the computer can control the
existence of matter.” Sutherland’s essay might have been full of fanciful
speculations about the future of digital technology, but his wild (and shockingly
accurate) predictions helped plant the seed of VR in the minds of scientists and
non-scientists to follow.

In 1968 with the help of one of his assistants, Sutherland created one of the
first head mounted augmented reality display systems—what would come to be
known through movies and TV as a VR helmet—known to some as The Sword of
Damocles because it was so big and heavy that it had to be suspended precariously
over the user’s head with a series of cables. The display only showed the users
crude outlines of a virtual environment.

Despite the technology’s scientific beginnings, however, VR made its first

major strides in fiction. The movie TRON had people imagining the possibilities of
interactive gaming to the Nth degree. William Gibson rocked the minds of a

14
generation when he wrote of a cyber-punk society where a brain-computer
interface was possible in Neuromancer. Ray Bradbury took the concept of a VR
room to its most horrific extreme in The Veldt.

And while VR charged ahead in the realm of fiction, in the field of science it
scrambled to keep up.

The first major technical leap forward came in the mid-‘70s in the form of
Myron Krueger’s VIDEOPLACE. Using cameras, computers and projectors,
people in a VR room were able to see and interact with silhouettes of people in
other similar rooms. Compared to the advances that writers and directors of the
time were coming up with, VIDEOPLACE was crude, but Krueger’s experiments
showed that science was at least trying to move forward with VR.

So, Virtual reality had bounded forward in one of the five senses—sight—
but that left the other four to conquer. Soon scientists were trying to combine
systems like VIDEOPLACE with data gloves and tactile interfaces. The leader in
this field was Jaron Lanier.

In fact, he popularized the term virtual reality. In 1985 Lanier founded a

company called VPL Research and began experimenting with all sorts of goggle
and glove set ups.

Initially, the video game market, captivated by the possibilities of VR, tried
to cash in on the early advancements. Who could forget that seminal scene in the
classic movie Wizard where the badass townie unlocks a Nintendo power glove
from a carrying case and proceeds to school all those who dare come up against
him? Or the phase in the mid-‘90s where you could stand on a giant platform, put
on a ridiculously large helmet and box a 16-bit opponent with Nintendo Wii-like
controllers?

But all of these attempts to game with VR would quickly fade away—most
in less than a year. The tech was too expensive, the equipment was too bulky and
the graphics and game play offered weren’t up to par. So, gaming companies
quickly cut their losses and left VR to the scientists and the artists, and they had a
field day.

Since the late ‘80s virtual reality has been popping up everywhere in movies
and TV. The Lawnmower man, VR5, Virtuosity, eXistenZ, and most famously The
Matrix imagined worlds where the goggles and gloves were obsolete; it was all
about beaming the information directly into the user’s brain.

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 Science too kept pursuing the elusive brass ring of VR, but direct to brain
transmission was and is still a little invasive for the scientific community
(However, this didn’t stop Sony from patenting the idea that information could
someday be beamed into a human’s brain earlier this year). Instead, they
concentrated on better, less intrusive helmets, more efficient interfaces and more
realistic 3D modeling.

Virtual Reality in… Reality

This brings us to today. Current VR technology, while more impressive than

anything we’ve had before, still falls short of what we imagined it could be. Most
systems can only manage to immerse two senses at a time: The VR systems that
therapists use to help treat client phobias or PTSD use helmets or small rooms to
simulate sights and sounds; The Nintendo Wii allows people to physically interact
with a virtual opponent.

But science is getting tired of this plateau it’s been stuck on. In the last few
years, researchers in the field of VR have been stretching themselves to hit more of
the five senses.

One of the biggest innovations in VR came earlier this year. Sight and sound
have always been the go-to senses for virtual reality researchers, but few have
ventured into the realm of taste and smell. In March 2009 a team of scientists from
the Universities of York and Warwick in the U.K. revealed what they saw as a
giant leap forward in VR tech, the Virtual Cocoon. The cocoon not only simulates
the looks and sounds of a 3D environment on the inside of a portable helmet, it also
has a library of smells and tastes it can feed to the user to correspond to the world
they are experiencing.

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 Which just leaves one last aspect of creating a truly immersive virtual reality
system–the ever elusive locomotion? You can create life-like graphics and simulate
realistic sounds, you can feed them tastes and smells, but as soon as your test
subject takes their first step to explore your virtual world, you’re in trouble, and a
virtual world the size of your living room just doesn’t do it for most people.

To get around this problem, a company called Cyberwalk has started work
on an omni-directional treadmill they call the CyberCarpet. This would allow
people to walk in any direction for as long as they want without hitting a wall or
walking into traffic. When combined with something like the Virtual Cocoon,
we’re the closest we’ve ever been to escaping this troublesome world in favour of
an ideal one of our own making.

We may have waited a long time, and the technology might be in its infancy,
but we may have our VR rooms and Holodecks sooner that we think.

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 4. MAIN TYPES OF VR
(Classified by display technology)

Although it is difficult to categorise all VR systems, most configurations fall

into three main categories and each category can be ranked by the sense of
immersion, or degree of presence it provides. Immersion or presence can be
regarded as how powerfully the attention of the user is focused on the task in hand.
Immersion presence is generally believed to be the product of several parameters

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including level of interactivity, image complexity, stereoscopic view, field of
regard and the update rate of the display. For example, providing a stereoscopic
rather than monoscopic view of the virtual environment will increase the sense of
immersion experienced by the user. It must be stressed that no one parameter is
effective in isolation and the level of immersion achieved is due to the complex
interaction of the many factors involved.

As will be shown in this report, the type of VR system being used an

important consideration when one investigates the genesis of sickness symptoms
and the type of symptoms that may develop.

Non-Immersive (Desktop) Systems

Non-immersive systems, as the name suggests, are the least immersive

implementation of VR techniques. Using the desktop system, the virtual
environment is viewed through a portal or window by utilising a standard high
resolution monitor. Interaction with the virtual environment can occur by
conventional means such as keyboards, mice and trackballs or may be enhanced by
using 3D interaction devices such as a SpaceBallä; or DataGloveä; .

The non-immersive system has advantages in that they do not require the
highest level of graphics performance, no special hardware and can be
implemented on high specification PC clones. This means that these systems can
be regarded as the lowest cost VR solution which can be used for many
applications. However, this low cost means that these systems will always be
outperformed by more sophisticated implementations, provide almost no sense of
immersion and are limited to a certain extent by current 2D interaction devices.

Additionally, these systems are of little use where the perception of scale is
an important factor. However, one would expect to see an increase in the
popularity of such systems for VR use in the near future. This is due to the fact that
Virtual Reality Modelling Reality Language (VRML) is expected to be adopted as
a de-facto standard for the transfer of 3D model data and virtual worlds via the
internet. The advantage of VRML for the PC desktop user is that this software runs
relatively well on a PC, which is not always the case for many proprietary VR
authoring tools. Furthermore, many commercial VR software suppliers are now
incorporating VRML capability into their software and exploring the commercial
possibilities of desktop VR in general.

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Semi-Immersive Projection Systems

Semi-immersive systems are a relatively new implementation of VR

technology and borrow considerably from technologies developed in the flight
simulation field.

A semi-immersive system will comprise of a relatively high performance

graphics computing system which can be coupled with either:

• A large screen monitor

• A large screen projector system
• Multiple television projection systems

In many ways, these projection systems are similar to the IMAX theatres
discussed in section 1.1. Using a wide field of view, these systems increase the
feeling of immersion or presence experienced by the user. However, the quality of
the projected image is an important consideration. It is important to calibrate the
geometry of the projected image to the shape of the screen to prevent distortions
and the resolution will determine the quality of textures, colours, the ability of
define shapes and the ability of the user to read text on-screen. The resolutions of
projection systems range from 1000 - 3000 lines but to achieve the highest levels it
may be necessary to use multiple projection systems which are more expensive.

Semi-immersive systems therefore provide a greater sense of presence than

non-immersive systems and also a greater appreciation of scale. In addition, images
can be provided that are of a far greater resolution than HMDs and this
implementation provides the ability to share the virtual experience.

This may have a considerable benefit in educational applications as it allows

simultaneous experience of the VE which is not available with head-mounted
immersive systems. Additionally, stereographic imaging can be achieved, using
some type of shuttered glasses in synchronisation with the graphics system.

Shutter Glasses

Liquid Crystal Shutter (LCS) glasses are an important technology when

considering semi-immersive systems and consist of a lightweight headset with a

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liquid crystal lens placed over each eye. Stereopsis works on the principle that in
order to perceive depth in a scene, the observer must see slightly different images
of the scene under regard in each eye. In the real world this occurs because the two
eyes are placed slightly apart in the head, and so each eye views the scene from a
slightly different position.

The graphics computer used displays slightly different left and right views (known
as a stereo pair) of the virtual environment sequentially on the display system. To
achieve the stereoscopic effect, the glasses either pass or block an image that is
produced on the VDU or projected display. When the left image is displayed, the
left eye lens is switched on, allowing the viewer’s left eye to see the screen. The
right eye lens, however, remains off, thus blocking the right eyes view. When the
right image is displayed, the opposite occurs. This switching between images
occurs so rapidly that it is undetectable by the user, who fuses the two images in
the brain to see one constant 3D image.

Picture courtesy of Loughborough University Advanced VR Research Centre

Figure 1. A semi-immersive wide-screen projection system in use with shutter

glasses.

Examples of this product commercially available include CrystalEyes Shutter

Glasses and the 3D Max Shutter Glasses System.

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 Again however, the increased performance of this VR implementation
comes at a cost. Setting up a projection screen system is far more difficult than a
desktop system and is considerably more expensive. Additionally, there are
problems with current interaction devices for these systems. Firstly, one must
consider carefully the applications that such a system may be used for. For a flight
simulation system it is possible to simply used an inceptor (joystick) which can be
interpreted by the aircraft model as the flight control input. This is acceptable as
the simulator is not used for any other applications but becomes problematical
when one considers that a semi-immersive installation may have multifarious uses
that may require different interaction strategies. Secondly, one must consider
multi-user issues, as this is one of the main advantages of these systems. The
handover of control between users is one of the issues that must be considered as
this technology develops.

Fully Immersive Head-Mounted Display Systems

The most direct experience of virtual environments is provided by fully

immersive VR systems. These systems are probably the most widely known VR
implementation where the user either wears an HMD or uses some form of head-
coupled display such as a Binocular Omni-Orientation Monitor or BOOM (Bolas,
1994).

Head Mounted Displays (HMDs)

An HMD uses small monitors placed in front of each eye which can provide
stereo, bi-ocular or monocular images. Stereo images are provided in a similar way
to shutter glasses, in that a slightly different image is presented to each eye. The
major difference is that the two screens are placed very close (50-70mm) to the
eye, although the image, which the wearer focuses on, will be much further away
because of the HMD optical system. Bi-ocular images can be provided by
displaying identical images on each screen and monocular images by using only
one display screen.

The most commonly used displays are small Liquid Crystal Display (LCD)
panels but more expensive HMDs use Cathode Ray Tubes (CRT) which increase
the resolution of the image. The HMD design may partially or fully exclude the
users view of the real world and enhances the field of view of the computer

22
generated world. The advantage of this method is that the user is provided with a
360°; field of regard meaning that the user will receive a visual image if they turn
their head to look in ANY direction.

All fully immersive systems will give a sense of presence that cannot be
equalled by the other approaches discussed earlier, but the sense of immersion
depends of several parameters including the field of view of the HMD, the
resolution, the update rate, and contrast and illumination of the display.

Image courtesy of VISERG, Loughborough University

Figure 2. The major components of an HMD. This illustration shows the two
screens capable of producing stereo images and speakers located to provide
stereo sound.

Fully immersive VR systems tend to be the most demanding in terms of the

computing power and level of technology (and consequently cost!) required to
achieve a satisfactory level of realism and development is constantly underway to
improve the technologies. Major areas of research and development include field
of view vs resolution trade-offs, reducing the size and weight of HMDs and
reducing system lag times.

Comparison between VR Implementations

23
Kalawsky (1996) provides a good comparison between the various VR
implementations (see Table 2.1). It is also important that these implementations are
not regarded as distinct boundaries for implementations. For example, it is possible
to turn a desktop system into a semi-immersive system by simply adding shutter
glasses and the appropriate software, or a fully immersive system by connecting an
HMD.

Table 2.1

Qualitative performance of different VR systems (adapted from Kalawsky, 1996)

Qualitative Performance

Main Features Non- Immersive Semi- Full

VR Immersive VR Immersive VR

(Desktop) (Projection) (Head-

coupled)

Resolution High High Low - Medium

Scale Low Medium - High High

(perception)

Sense of Low Medium High

situational
awareness

(navigation
skills)

Field of regard Low Medium High

Lag Low Low Medium - High

24
 Sense of None - low Medium - High Medium - High
immersion

5. VIRTUAL REALITY ENVIRONMENT

Other sensory output from the VE system should adjust in real time as a user
explores the environment. If the environment incorporates 3-D sound, the user
must be convinced that the sound’s orientation shifts in a natural way as he
maneuvers through the environment. Sensory stimulation must be consistent if a
user is to feel immersed within a VE. If the VE shows a perfectly still scene, you
wouldn’t expect to feel gale-force winds. Likewise, if the VE puts you in the
middle of a hurricane, you wouldn’t expect to feel a gentle breeze or detect the
scent of roses.

Lag time between when a user acts and when the virtual environment
reflects that action is called latency. Latency usually refers to the delay between
the time a user turns his head or moves his eyes and the change in the point of
view, though the term can also be used for a lag in other sensory outputs. Studies
with flight simulators show that humans can detect a latency of more than 50
milliseconds. When a user detects latency, it causes him to become aware of being
in an artificial environment and destroys the sense of immersion.

An immersive experience suffers if a user becomes aware of the real world

around him. Truly immersive experiences make the user forget his real
surroundings, effectively causing the computer to become a non entity. In order to
reach the goal of true immersion, developers have to come up with input methods
that are more natural for users. As long as a user is aware of the interaction device,
he is not truly immersed.

USING an inventive new method in which mice run through a virtual reality
environment based on the video game Quake, researchers from Princeton
University have made the first direct measurements of the cellular activity
associated with spatial navigation. The method will allow for investigations of the
neural circuitry underlying navigation, and should lead to a better understanding of
how spatial information is encoded at the cellular level.

25
 In mice, spatial navigation involves at least four different cell types located
in the hippocampus and surrounding regions. Place cells increase their activity
when the animal is in a specific location within its environment, called the place
field.

Grid cells, by contrast, fire periodically as the animal traverses a space; each
has a unique periodicity, and apparently measures out the space using its own
scale. Head direction cells, as their name implies, fire when the animal is facing a
particular direction and border cells, which were identified only last year, encode
the animal's distance from the borders within its environment.

Place cells were discovered almost 40 years ago and are the most extensively
studied of these cell types. Their activity is typically recorded using small arrays of
microelectrodes implanted within the hippocampus of a freely moving rodent. The
arrays can remain in place for days or weeks, during which time they can be used
to monitor changes in place cell firing rates, and how the acitivty of cells is related
to the animal's movements within its environment. They record from afar, because
the animal's movements prevent them from coming into, and maintaining, close
contact with the cells.

In the ingenious set-up devised by members of David Tank's laboratory, the

mice were restrained, and ran on a spherical treadmill supported by a jet of air.
Information about the rotation of the treadmill was used to control the animals'
movements along a computer-generated track which was projected onto a
surrounding screen.

26
 In this virtual environment, the place cells behaved as expected. All the cells
from which recordings were made generated short, regular bursts of nervous
impulses, separated by intervals of about one tenth of a second,.

This produced a low level of background activity called the theta oscillation,
which has a frequency of 6-10 cycles per second, and which is characteristic of the
hippocampus. The actvity of individual place cells was modulated by location. As
the animal entered a given place field, the corresponding place cell increased its
firing rate almost five-fold, to generate a rhythmic discharge with a higher
frequency than the background.

Because the animals were stationary, the electrodes could be used to record
directly from the place cells, enabling the researchers to measure their dynamical
electrical properties. This revealed how their firing rate increases: as the mouse
approached a place field, the corresponding cell would ramp up its resting
membrane voltage. This would cause the cell to increase the frequency of its
impulses while the mouse ran through the field. When the animal emerged from
the other side of the field, the membrane voltage would go back down to its normal
level, and the frequency of impulses would decrease again. The background
activity of single cells was also found to increase while the animal was in the
appropriate location.

These findings are consistent with the predictions of a model which states
that place cell activity is modulated by interactions between two separate
oscillating inputs. The data do not exclude other possibilities, however, and the
availablity of this virtual reality system will enable researchers to study the
activity of place cells in greater detail, because it offers researchers the ability to
design highly customized environments, and can be used in combination with other
techniques such as two-photon laser scanning microscopy.

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 6. HOW VIRTUAL REALITY WORKS

What do you think of when you hear the words virtual reality (VR)? Do
you imagine someone wearing a clunky helmet attached to a computer with a thick
cable? Do visions of crudely rendered pterodactyls haunt you? Do you think of
Neo and Morpheus traipsing about the Matrix? Or do you wince at the term,
wishing it would just go away?

If the last applies to you, you're likely a computer scientist or engineer, many
of whom now avoid the words virtual reality even while they work on technologies
most of us associate with VR. Today, you're more likely to hear someone use the
words virtual environment (VE) to refer to what the public knows as virtual
reality.

Fig: A virtual reality CAVE display projecting images onto the floor, walls and
ceiling to provide full immersion.

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 Naming discrepancies aside, the concept remains the same - using computer
technology to create a simulated, three-dimensional world that a user can
manipulate and explore while feeling as if he were in that world.
Scientists, theorists and engineers have designed dozens of devices and
applications to achieve this goal. Opinions differ on what exactly constitutes a true
VR experience, but in general it should include:
• Three-dimensional images that appear to be life-sized from the
perspective of the user
• The ability to track a user's motions, particularly his head
and eye movements, and correspondingly adjust the images on the user's
display to reflect the change in perspective.

Have you ever wondered how does virtual reality work? Well, you are not
alone. Virtual reality is overtaking the real world and you cannot help but come
into contact with virtual environments.

What is a virtual environment? A virtual

reality space is said to exist when a 3D computer
generated world has been created. This world must
allow users to interact with the environment and
each other and leave the user with the feeling that he
is actually in the virtual environment.

Universities and schools use virtual reality to

interact with students. Businesses use virtual reality to communicate and to
advertise. Online gaming uses virtual reality to create realistic gaming scenarios.
The uses of virtual reality are endless.

For an experience to qualify as a virtual reality experience it must both

immerse you in the virtual world and allow you to interact with the environment
and others in the environment. The combination of immersion and the ability to
interact is known as telepresence. If either of these qualities is missing you will not
have a true virtual experience.

How Does Virtual Reality Work? Dive Right In!

To understand how virtual reality works you must understand the concept of
immersion. Immersion allows users to feel as if they exist within the virtual world.

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In order for a user to feel he is in a virtual world the world must appear to be a
regular sized world where perspectives and movement can be achieved effortlessly.

Immersion includes such concepts as sight and sound. A user must be able to
see in the virtual world as he does in the real world. If looking at a tree the user
must be able to walk around the tree and view it from many perspectives.

Sound is a major component of how virtual reality works. In the real world
sounds are heard in different volumes, pitches, and tones depending on where you
are and how you are moving. A virtual world must recreate this experience.

If a user becomes aware of the real world environment the virtual world has
failed. The goal of immersion is for the virtual world to mimic the real world to the
point that a user will be “lost” in the virtual environment and forget he is using a
computer or that the real world exists.

How Does Virtual Reality Work? With Inter-Action

The second component of a virtual world, and a driving force behind how a
virtual world works, is interaction. Users in the virtual world must be able to
interact with other users and the virtual environment.

Interaction with others in virtual worlds can be accomplished via text or

speech. A keyboard will allow users to communicate with other users in text
format. Microphones and headsets let users communicate using speech.

Interaction with the environment means that the user has the ability to move
objects in his environment. The virtual user can move in the virtual environment
and do many things he would in the real world.

As with immersion, interaction must be seamless. There should be no lag

time between your real life movements, (or speech), and the corresponding actions
in the virtual world. Lag time will cause the virtual experience to be limited.

Understanding how virtual reality works will make your life easier. Many
virtual reality programs are currently being created to make users’ daily lives more
pleasant. Once you understand how virtual reality works you can dive into the
virtual world.

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 7. APPLICATIONS OF VIRTUAL REALITY

VIRTUAL REALITY IS WELL KNOWN for its use with flight simulators and
games. However, these are only two of the many ways virtual reality is being used
today. This article will summarize how virtual reality is used in medicine,
architecture, weather simulation, chemistry and the visualization of voxel data. In
addition, links to web pages where other uses of virtual reality are detailed are
included at the end of this article.

Medicine

Mark Billinghurst, at the Hit Lab in Washington, has developed a

prototype surgical assistant for simulation of paranasal surgery.
During a simulated operation the system provides vocal and visual
feedback to the user, and warns the surgeon when a dangerous action
is about to take place. In addition to training, the expert assistant can
be used during the actual operation to provide feedback and guidance. This is very
useful when the surgeon's awareness of the situation is limited due to complex
anatamoy.

Finally, Billinghurst and his associates are working at developing a toolkit for
physicians which will help them create their own expert assistants for other types
of surgery.

Architecture

The department of visualization and virtual reality at the IGD

University in Germany has developed a program that uses radiosity
and raytracing to simulate light. This virtual reality program has
applications in the area of architecture and light engineering.

With light simulation architects can examine how outdoor light will fall inside and
outside their building before it is built. If the lighting needs to be redesigned, the
architect can redesign the building on the computer and examine the new outdoor
light effects.

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In addition to outdoor light, lighting engineers use virtual reality to examine the
effects of point lights, spotlights and other indoor light sources. An interior
designer could examine how light will affect different room arrangements.

Weather Simulation

Fraunhaufer-IGD has developed a visualization system for weather

forecasting called "TriVis". TriVis accepts data from meteorological
services such as satellite data, statistically corrected forecast data,
precipitation data and fronts information. It then analyzes this data
and uses fractal functions to create projections of storm systems.
Using TriVis to visualize artificial clouds, meteorologists can predict weather with
increased accuracy.

The data gathered and analyzed by the TriVis system is used by television weather
reporters to show their audiences storm systems. TriVis has been used in television
weather forecasts since 1993.

Chemistry

Real Mol is a program that uses virtual reality to show molecular

models in an interactive, immersive environment. The scientist who
uses the program wears a cyberglove and a head mounted display to
interact with the molecular system. Using RealMol scientists can
move molecules or protein chains to create new molecules. This is
useful in fields such as drug design.

RealMol displays molecules in three ways: ball and stick model, stick model and
CPK model. The molecules are rendered through a molecular dynamics simulation
program.

Voxel Data

ISVAS is an interactive software program that is utilized to analyze

3D and voxel data. It was developed by Fraunhofer-LBF. Using this
program, scientists can analyze vector or scalar values.

A similar program was used by students at UCSD to analyze the

voxel data obtained when observing the solar winds. The image at left is a small

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version of the visualization of the voxel data that depicts the solar wind patterns.

Other Applications of Virtual Reality

Flight Simulator

Museums and Cultural Heritage

Financial Data

Training: Hubble Telescope

On the Net: VR Resources

Eighteen professors from five departments decide to work together and

submit a request for a virtual reality system. Suppose further that the administration
actually believes that this is a wonderful idea and approves the proposal, provided
that the virtual reality system is put to use in the classroom. The faculty eagerly
agree to this condition, and to their amazement they acquire the funds to purchase
an SGI Onyx 2 Reality Engine and 10 SGI Indigos.

The above scenario is not some introduction to a John Grisham suspense

novel, but a real story at Clemson University. Recently Steve (D.E.) Stevenson
from the Department of Computer Science at Clemson University came to the
Geometry Center and talked about applications of Geometry with computers. Steve
mentioned briefly how various departments had been using the virtual reality
system they acquired, and showed specific examples of what they had done with
them.

The departments using the system range from those which traditionally
might use virtual reality, such as the Computer Science department, the Mechanical
Engineering department and the Architecture department, to fields not generally
associated with the technology such as the Biomedical Engineering department and
the Performing Arts department. All these disciplines' projects use the technology
in ways that create images and objects that otherwise would take a long time to
construct, or not be feasible to construct at all.

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 In particular, software is currently under development for Mechanical
Engineering students that extends CAD/CAE software to virtual reality. Instead of
clicking keystrokes to try to alter perspective views, a user is able to wear a helmet
and by moving their head around are able to view an object as if it were before
them. Moreover one is able to look through different layers of an object to view
how the device is operating internally. Although these are all things that CAD/CAE
software allows, the virtual reality system gives a user a more natural way to view
an object, which accordingly allows one to easier ask the question, "what if?"

Some of the other projects involving engineering are simulation-based

design, multipurpose design optimization and visualization in High Performance
Computing-Computer Formulated Design structures. Lastly one professor dreams
of creating a simulation of the famous Tacoma Narrows bridge collapsing so that
Civil and Mechanical Engineers can fully appreciate the consequences of their
errors.

In the Biomedical Engineering department some of the projects mentioned

are use of virtual reality for viewing of X-RAY's and MRI's, using
stereolithography to make prototypes of joints, and even having students perform
test surgery.

In the Computer Science department some of the projects range from

creating a toolkit for non-computer science designers, rendering and 3-D lighting,
viewing non-euclidean geometries, and modeling for resource management.

Projects in the Architecture department include creating a virtual reality

model of campus, and a laboratory on building design.

People in the Performing Arts department use virtual reality for Stage
Lighting and Stage Design Courses.

Of the above projects, two of the more interesting applications common to

both Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering, involve
stereolithography or 3D printing. One is able to design or input given data about an
object and actually create a prototype made out of polymers of the object viewed in
the virtual reality. One interesting example is that of an image of a Pelvis taken
from an MRI, piped into the virtual reality software so that one is able to view it,
and then a model of the bone is manufactured using the polymer machine. The
following figure is a virtual reality image of this pelvis.

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 Similarly, a model of a "ship in a bottle" was created using CAD/CAE
software viewed through the virtual reality software, and then made.

The virtual reality machines nicely compliment the polymer machine. One is
able to thoroughly view an object before making a prototype, thus saving on the
production costs of making a prototype.

The Computer Science department has also created some interesting

programs. Two software programs are titled Steve's Room and Oliver's Room.
Steve's Room is a program which allows the user via the helmet to look around a
room, turn on lights, and place objects by voice or mouse commands. Oliver's
Room also is a high resolution room. In this room, one can see in high resolution,
an Impressionist painting on the wall, a tiled floor, and a window with a view of
mountains. The following picture is a view of Oliver's Room.

35
 As with Steve's Room, the user is able via voice commands to move about
the room. The next picture is an image of what one might see through the helmet
after a request to move has been made.

The visual results from these projects are amazing, both in a practical sense
and in a pure aesthetic sense. The images created are useful in understanding the
structure of an object, as well as being suitable for framing. However, what is
equally impressive is that various departments were able to get together and pool
their resources so that this system could be acquired. By doing this, they have
provided themselves, and more importantly, their students, an opportunity to use
computer systems today that will no doubt be commonplace in the future.

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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 media'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 futuristic imagery many generations beyond contemporary
capabilities.

Fiction books

Many science fiction books and movies have imagined characters being
"trapped in virtual reality". One of the first modern works 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") in 1973 and into a movie titled The
Thirteenth Floor in 1999. 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 one may escape from
Earth's now toxic atmosphere. They are not aware of this, because their minds exist
within a shared, idealized virtual world known as Dream Earth, where they grow
up, live, and die, never knowing the world they live in is but a dream.

Stanislaw Lem wrote a short story in early 1960 called "dziwne skrzynie
profesora Corcorana” in which he presented a scientist who devised a completely
artificial virtual reality. Among the beings trapped inside his created virtual world,
there is also a scientist, who also devised such machines creating another level of
virtual world.

The Piers Anthony novel Killobyte follows the story of a paralyzed cop
trapped in a virtual reality game by a hacker, whom he must stop to save a fellow
trapped player with diabetes slowly succumbing to insulin shock. This novel toys
with the idea of both the potential positive therapeutic uses, such as allowing the
paralysed to experience the illusion of movement while stimulating unused
muscles, as well as virtual realities' dangers.

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 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.

Phillip K Dick's 1964 The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch includes Perky
Pat 'layouts', small physical representations of the world exact in every detail
complete with dolls. With the help of an interface in the form of a drug, people
immerse, or 'translate', themselves totally into these worlds to escape the tedium of
their lives as colonists on other planets of the solar system.

Vernor Vinge's True Names, published in 1981, imagines a virtual world

which is probably the first to represent a metaverse as it was later to be
characterised by such authors as William Gibson and Neal Stephenson. In True
Names characters interact with each other in a complete world where they can have
homes and work and are represented using avatars. This kind of virtual world was
later to be realised as Second Life, which was launched in 2003.

The Otherland series of 4 novels by Tad Williams, published between 1996

and 2001 and set in the 2070s, show a world where the Internet has become
accessible via virtual reality and has become so popular and commonplace that,
with the help of surgical implants, people can connect directly into this future VR
environment. The series follows the tale of a group of people who, while
investigating a mysterious illness attacking children while in VR, find themselves
trapped in a virtual reality system of fantastic detail and sophistication unlike any
the world has ever imagined.

Other popular fictional works that use the concept of virtual reality include
William Gibson's Neuromancer which defined the concept of cyberspace, Neal
Stephenson's Snow Crash, in which he made extensive reference to the term avatar
to describe one's representation in a virtual world, and Rudy Rucker's The Hacker
and the Ants, in which programmer Jerzy Rugby uses VR for robot design and
testing.

Another use of VR is in the teenage book "The Reality Bug" by D.J

MacHale, where the inhabitants of a territory can have their own perfect virtual
world, causing everyone to neglect the real world. To cause everyone to spend less
time there, a virus is introduced that should make it slightly less than perfect.
However, it is so powerful it introduces their worst nightmares, and eventually
physically breaks out of the computer until it is shut down.

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 Alexander Besher's Rim: A Novel of Virtual Reality is similar to Otherland,
however it also shows the urban decay that obsession with VR has caused, and the
devastating effects to the economy it causes after a major crash leaves millions of
users in a coma and some dead.

Television

Perhaps the earliest example of virtual reality on television is a Doctor Who

serial "The Deadly Assassin". This story, first broadcast in 1976, introduced a
dream-like computer-generated reality known as the Matrix (no relation to the
film — see below). The first major American television series to showcase virtual
reality was Star Trek: The Next Generation. Several episodes featured a holodeck,
a virtual reality facility that enabled its users to recreate and experience anything
they wanted. One difference from current virtual reality technology, however, was
that replicators, force fields, holograms, and transporters were used to actually
recreate and place objects in the holodeck, rather than illusions of physical objects,
as is done today.

In Japan and Hong Kong, the first anime series to use the idea of virtual
reality was Video Warrior Laserion (1984).

An anime series known as Serial Experiments Lain included a virtual reality

world known as "The Wired" that eventually co-existed with the real world.

Cult British BBC2 sci-fi series Red Dwarf featured a virtual reality game
titled Better Than Life, featuring a plot where the main characters had spent many
years connected to the game. This was elaborated on in the book, based on the
series' episodes, of the same name. Virtual reality has also been featured in other
Red Dwarf episodes including Back to Reality, where venom from the despair
squid caused the characters to believe all their experiences on Red Dwarf had been
part of a VR simulation. Other episodes that feature Virtual reality include Gunmen
of the Apocalypse, Stoke Me a Clipper, Blue, Beyond a Joke, and Back in the Red.

Children's television show Are You Afraid Of The Dark? uses the concept of
virtual reality as the premise of the episode "The Tale Of The Renegade Virus"
(1993).

Channel 4's Gamesmaster (1992 – 1998) also used a VR headset in its "tips
and cheats" segment.

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 BBC 2's Cyberzone (1993) was the first true "virtual reality" game show. It
was presented by Craig Charles.

FOX's VR.5 (1995) starring Lori Singer and David McCallum, used what
appeared to be mistakes in technology as part of the show's on-going mystery.

In 2002, Series 4 of hit New Zealand teen sci-fi TV Series, The Tribe
featured the arrival of a new tribe to the city, The Technos. They tried to gain
power by introducing Virtual Reality to the city. The tribes would battle each other
in the Virtual World in a "game" designed by the leader of The Techno's, Ram.
However, the effects of VR on the people turned nasty when they started to fight in
the real world as well, after too much use made them unable to tell the difference
between what was real and what was virtual.

In 2005, Brazilian's Globo TV features a show where VR helmets are used

by the attending audience in a space simulation called Conquista de Titã,
broadcasted for more than 20 million viewers weekly.

In the anime version of Yu-Gi-Oh!, one three-part episode sees the heroes
entering a virtual world based on the game Duel Monsters, where the players must
use their cards to work their way through a series of story-based challenges,
including simulated monsters. Later, another anime-only arc forces the heroes to
enter another virtual world, similar in concept but with a different set of rules. In
both arcs, the bodies of the humans entering the virtual world are confined to
special pods for the duration of their stay there.

The popular .hack multimedia franchise is based on a virtual reality

MMORPG ironically dubbed "The World"

The French animated series Code Lyoko is based on the virtual world of
Lyoko and the Internet. The virtual world is accessed by large scanners which use
an atomic process which breaks down the atoms of the person inside, digitizes
them and recreates an incarnation on Lyoko.

In 2010 Caprica a science fiction television series introduce a fully immersed

virtual reality world that the main character ventures in.

Motion pictures

40
 Steven Lisberger's 1982 movie TRON was the first mainstream Hollywood
picture to explore the idea. One year later, it would be more fully expanded in the
Natalie Wood film Brainstorm.David Cronenberg's film EXistenZ dealt with the
danger of confusion between reality and virtual reality in computer games.
Cyberspace became something that most movies completely misunderstood, as
seen in The Lawnmower Man. This idea was also used in Spy Kids 3-D: Game
Over. Another movie that has a bizarre theme is Brainscan, where the point of the
game is to be a virtual killer. A more artistic and philosophical perspective on the
subject can be seen in Avalon. One of the non-Sci Fi movies that uses VR as a
story driver is 1994's Disclosure, starring Michael Douglas and based on the
Michael Crichton book of the same name. A VR headset is used as a navigating
device for a prototype computer filing system. There is also a film from 1995
called "Virtuosity" with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe that dealt with the
creation of a serial killer, used to train law enforcement personnel, that escapes his
virtual reality into the real world. Written by William Gibson himself, Johnny
Mnemonic uses extensive VR, depicting Keanu Reeves playing a "cyber-courier"
(Johnny Mnemonic) who smuggles data in his brain. James Cameron's 2009 movie
Avatar depicts a future time when people's consciousness are virtually transported
into biologically grown avatars.

Music videos

The lengthy video for hard rock band Aerosmith's 1993 single "Amazing"
depicted virtual reality, going so far as to show two young people participating in
virtual reality simultaneously from their separate personal computers (while not
knowing the other was also participating in it) in which the two engage in a steamy
makeout session, sky-dive, and embark on a motorcycle journey together.

Games

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 Classic Virtual reality HMD with glove

In 1991, the company (originally W Industries, later renamed) Virtuality

licenced the Amiga 3000 for use in their VR machines and released a VR gaming
system called the 1000CS. This was a stand-up immersive HMD platform with a
tracked 3D joystick. The system featured several VR games including Dactyl
Nightmare (shoot-em-up), Legend Quest (adventure and fantasy), Hero (VR
puzzle), Grid Busters (shoot-em-up). Virtual Reality I Glasses Personal Display
System is a visor and headphones headset that is compatible with any video input
including 3D broadcasting, and usable with most game systems (Nintendo,
PlayStation, etc.). Virtual Reality World 3D Color Ninja game comes with headset
visor and ankle and wrist straps that sense the player's punches and kicks. Virtual
Reality Wireless TV Tennis Game comes with a toy tennis racket that senses the
player's swing, while Wireless TV Virtual Reality Boxing includes boxing gloves
that the player wears and jabs with. Bob Ladrach brought Virtual Knight into the
major theme park arcades in 1994. Aura Interactor Virtual Reality Game Wear is a
chest and back harness through which the player can feel punches, explosions,
kicks, uppercuts, slam-dunks, crashes, and bodyblows. It works with Sega Genesis
and Super Nintendo.

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 on a virtual reality video
game. This shows the potentially dangerous side of virtual reality, demonstrating
the adverse effects on human health and possible viruses, including a comatose
state that some players assume.

Metal Gear Solid bases heavily on VR usage, either as a part of the plot
(particularly Metal Gear Solid 2 which focuses on the blur between reality and

42
virtual reality), or simply to guide the players through training sessions. In System
Shock, the player has implants making him able to enter into a kind of cyberspace.
Its sequel, System Shock 2 also features some minor levels of VR. In Black and
White users could download a patch to use the P5 glove to control the game.

Attractions

The developer of theme park style attractions using Virtual Reality

technology was a major part of the development of the hardware — moving
beyond simulation towards an immersive entertainment experience. Of all these
developments, the Walt Disney 'DisneyQuest' venue is the major conceptual
application — still operational in 2009. Making Virtual Reality attractions mobile
has also been on the forefront of their consumer appeal. As the technology
improves and becomes more mainstream, various business and corporate events
employ Virtual Reality providers to attract business and entertain their employees
and guests.

Fine Art

David Em was the first fine artist to create navigable virtual worlds in the
1970s. His early work was done on mainframes at III, JPL and Caltech. Jeffrey
Shaw explored the potential of VR in fine arts with early works like Legible City
(1989), Virtual Museum (1991), Golden Calf(1994). Canadian artist Char Davies
created immersive VR art pieces Osmose (1995) and Ephémère (1998). Maurice
Benayoun's work introduced metaphorical, philosophical or political content,
combining VR, network, generation and intelligent agents, in works like Is God
Flat (1994), The Tunnel under the Atlantic (1995), World Skin (1997). Other
pioneering artists working in VR have include Luc Courchesne, Rita Addison,
Knowbotic Research, Rebecca Allen, Perry Hoberman, Jacki Morie, and Brenda
Laurel. All mentioned artists are documented in the Database of Virtual Art.

Marketing

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 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 by Mattel from the 1980s was an early example as
well as the U-Force and later, the Sega Activator. Marketing ties between VR and
video games are to be expected, 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. TV commercials featuring
VR have also been made for other products, however, such as Nike's "Virtual
Andre" in 1997, featuring a teenager playing tennis using a goggle and gloves
system against a computer generated by am co-operation..

Health care education

While its use is still not widespread, virtual reality is finding its way into the
training of health care professionals. Use ranges from anatomy instruction to
surgery simulation. Annual conferences are held to examine the latest research in
utilizing virtual reality in the medical fields.

Therapeutic uses

The primary use of VR in a therapeutic role is its application to various

forms of exposure therapy, ranging from phobia treatments, to newer approaches to
treating PTSD. A very basic VR simulation with simple sight and sound models
has been shown to be invaluable in phobia treatment (notable examples would be
various zoophobias, and acrophobia) as a step between basic exposure therapy such
as the use of simulacra and true exposure. A much more recent application is being
piloted by the U.S. Navy to use a much more complex simulation to immerse
veterans (specifically of Iraq) suffering from PTSD in simulations of urban combat
settings. While this sounds counterintuitive, talk therapy has limited benefits for
people with PTSD, which is now thought by many to be a result of changes either
to the limbic system in particular, or a systemic change in stress response. Much as
in phobia treatment, exposure to the subject of the trauma or fear seems to lead to
desensitization, and a significant reduction in symptoms.

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 Another research field for the use of Virtual Reality is Physical Medicine
and Rehabilitation and Occupational Therapy. Virtual Reality is being tested in
upper and lower limb motor rehabilitation after stroke and spinal cord injuries, and
also for cerebral palsy and other disabilities. Researchers use haptic devices and
rehabilitation robots with virtual reality games to improve motivation during
exercises. Examples of this robotic applications are for upper limbs, Armeo form
Hocoma, Gentle from Reading University, or Manus from MIT. An example of
haptic device for upper limbs rehabilitation is Curictus. Examples for lower limb
rehabilitation robot and haptic devices used with virtual reality systems are
Lokomat (from Hocoma Company) and Haptic Walker from Reading University.

Radio

In 2009, British digital radio station BBC Radio 7 broadcasted Planet B, a

science-fiction drama set in a virtual world. Planet B is the largest ever
commission for an original drama programme.

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 8. FUTURE

It is difficult to predict the future of virtual reality with confidence. In the

short run, the graphics displayed in the HMD will soon reach a point of near visual
(but not behavioral) realism. The audio capabilities will move into a new realm of
three dimensional sound. This refers to the addition of sound channels both above
and below the individual or a Holophony approach.

Within existing technological limits, sight and sound are the two senses
which best lend themselves to high quality simulation. There are however attempts
being currently made to simulate smell. The purpose of current research is linked
to a project aimed at treating Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in veterans by
exposing them to combat simulations, complete with smells.

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 Although it is often seen in the context of entertainment by popular culture,
this illustrates the point that the future of VR is very much tied into therapeutic,
training, and engineering demands. Given that fact, a full sensory immersion
beyond basic tactile feedback, sight, sound, and smell is unlikely to be a goal in the
industry.
It is worth mentioning that simulating smells, while it can be done very
realistically, requires costly research and development to make each odor, and the
machine itself is expensive and specialized, using capsules tailor made for it. Thus
far basic, and very strong smells such as burning rubber, cordite, gasoline fumes,
and so-forth have been made. Japan's NTT Communications, of Tokyo, has just
finished testing an Internet-connected odor-delivery system to be used by retailers
and restaurants to attract customers. But as new trials and applications are tried out
and more data gathered, Hamada says he is sure the technology “will take
communications to a new level in content richness, compared to today's
communications, which only offers images and sounds”.
In order to engage the other sense of taste, the brain must be manipulated
directly. This would move virtual reality into the realm of simulated reality like the
brain interface ports used in The Matrix. Although no form of this has been
seriously developed at this point, Sony has taken the first step. On April 7, 2005,
Sony went public with the information that they had filed for and received a patent
for the idea of the non-invasive beaming of different frequencies and patterns of
ultrasonic waves directly into the brain to recreate all five senses. There has been
research to show that this is possible. Sony has conducted tests and says that it is a
good idea.
Virtual reality is a costly development in technology. Because of this, the
future of VR is dependent on whether or not those costs can be reduced in some
way. If VR technology becomes affordable, it could be very widespread but for
now major industries are the sole buyers that have the opportunity to utilize this
resource.

Long before there was the Internet, there were artifacts of virtual reality. For
example, the U.S. Navy's 1944 Whirlwind computer project to create a flight
simulator was the first use of a graphical display generated by computer on a
cathode ray tube (CRT).

47
 Fast-forward nearly 60 years and virtual reality — a collection of digital and
graphic techniques used to build computer worlds, a surround sound for the mind,
as it were — still fascinates with its promise. Already, there are VR rooms where
researchers dabble with data in 3-D and VR devices that can help people overcome
simple fears.

The language of 3-D or virtual reality — VRML (pronounced "vermal") for

Virtual Reality Modeling Language — was created in 1994 by Mark Pesce and
Tony Parisi. And it works with HTML — the HyperText Markup Language
tagging structure used to build the World Wide Web.

The technology now allows us to experience VR in at least three ways. The

standard is still the display you place on your head, what appears to be advanced
life-form sunglasses. The second is known as BOOM — Binocular Omni-
Orientation Monitor — an instrument that looks like a delicately balanced
periscope that the user grasps and moves in any direction.

The third resembles the Holodeck, the virtual reality theater on the popular
television series Star Trek. Introduced by the Electronic Visualization Laboratory
at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1992, it is a room with images projected
on three walls as well as on the floor. Users move inside what is called the CAVE
and view the images with stereo glasses. As they move, a supercomputer updates
the images and the perspective.

Two versions of CAVE — for CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment — are

found at Cornell University and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
The acronym CAVE also refers to the metaphor of reality and appearance used by
the Greek philosopher Plato in his dialogue The Republic.

Beyond entertainment and flight simulation, the CAVE lets engineers and
scientists visualize and manipulate complex data. For example, they can study
pollution emission, design vehicle interiors and exteriors, simulate surgery,
conduct psychological testing, experiment with package design, analyze
architectural site plans and test handling procedures for hazardous material.

Another intriguing use of VR is under way at the Cognitive & Linguistic

Sciences Department at Brown University. There scientists, working with people
who have simple phobias, use virtual reality as part of therapy to modify behavior.

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 For example, wearing a headset that tracks motion and strapped in a typical
airline seat complete with vibrations, a person can be exposed in a managed
environment to sensations that simulate air travel to help her overcome a fear of
flying.

On the distant horizon are efforts at virtual reality therapy to treat a range of
phobias, from those involving elevators and escalators — not to mention dogs,
snakes, mice and insects — all the way to fear of doctors and laboratories.

Where is the technology heading? For Michael Donfrancesco, a senior

executive with InterSense, a firm that makes real-time motion tracking devices like
headsets, the trend is toward sophistication, miniaturization and enhanced
visualization. In fact, he prefers to speak of augmented reality rather than virtual
reality. He sees it used not only on the Internet but in television studios to create
virtual sets or backgrounds.

He says we will soon be immersed inside the Internet, interacting with it

virtually in three dimensions. We may all wear personal headsets that allow us to
walk through scenes we now see in two dimensions on our computer monitors.

His company's products let designers, artists, assembly line workers,

scientists, teachers and children playing video games interact with 3-D virtual
images.

For example, their InterTrax2, a lightweight headset which retails for $995,
lets users look up, down and around through 360 degrees to explore their virtual
environment.

The company was founded in 1996 by Eric Foxlin, an MIT researcher whose
academic work helped reduce the jitter, distortion and lag — the delay in resolving
an image as you move your head from side to side — of traditional magnetic-based
motion tracking systems.

Unlike the traditional systems, the InterSense products are unaffected by

electrical or magnetic interference. Thus, you can use them near monitors or large
metal structures. In the past, not only did metal objects cause interference, which
reduced the effectiveness of the VR application, but users often became nauseous
from simulator sickness, a form of motion sickness caused by image lag.

49
 The company says its patented technology jump-starts the next generation of
e-commerce, entertainment, distance learning, design and manufacturing. Yet, like
most technology under development today, it is a solution searching for
applications that entice or excite consumers and business.

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First Virtual Reality Technology To Let You See, Hear, Smell, Taste
And Touch

To date, though, Virtual Reality devices have not been able to stimulate
simultaneously all five senses with a high degree of realism.

Scientists from the Universities of York and Warwick now believe they have
been able to pinpoint the necessary expertise to make this possible, in a project
called 'Towards Real Virtuality'.

'Real Virtuality' is a term coined by the project team to highlight their aim of
providing a 'real' experience in which all senses are stimulated in such a way that
the user has a fully immersive perceptual experience, during which s/he cannot tell
whether or not it is real.

Fig: Concept design of a mobile Virtual Cocoon.

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 Teams at York and Warwick now aim to link up with experts at the
Universities of Bangor, Bradford and Brighton to develop the 'Virtual Cocoon' – a
new Real Virtuality device that can stimulate all five senses much more
realistically than any other current or prospective device.
For the user the 'Virtual Cocoon' will consist of a headset incorporating specially
developed electronics and computing capabilities. It could help unlock the full
potential benefits of Real Virtuality in fields such as education, business and
environmental protection.

A mock-up of the Virtual Cocoon will be on display at 'Pioneers 09', an

EPSRC showcase event to be held at London's Olympia Conference Centre on
March 4.

Professor David Howard of the University of York, lead scientist on the

initiative, says: "Virtual Reality projects have typically only focused on one or two
of the five senses – usually sight and hearing. We're not aware of any other
research group anywhere else in the world doing what we plan to do.

"Smell will be generated electronically via a new technique being pioneered

by Alan Chalmers and his team at Warwick which will deliver a pre-determined
smell recipe on-demand. Taste and smell are closely linked but we intend to
provide a texture sensation relating to something being in the mouth. Tactile
devices will provide touch."

A key objective will be to optimize the way all five senses interact, as in real
life. The team also aims to make the Virtual Cocoon much lighter, more
comfortable and less expensive than existing devices, as a result of the improved
computing and electronics they develop.

There has been considerable public debate on health & safety as well as on
ethical issues surrounding Real Virtuality, since this kind of technology
fundamentally involves immersing users in virtual environments that separate them
from the real world.

Professor David Howard says: "In addition to the technical development of

the Virtual Cocoon, we aim to closely evaluate the full, far-reaching economic and
other implications of more widespread application of Real Virtuality technologies
for society as a whole."

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 9. IMPACT OF VIRTUAL REALITY

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). Mychilo S. Cline, in his book, Power,
Madness, and Immortality: The Future of Virtual Reality, published in 2005,
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 various 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 a 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 stability as we move from one stage in socio-political
development to the next.

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The Potential Impact of Virtual Reality in Various Psychosocial Domains:

Although much might be said concerning the impact of VR on such domains

as education (e.g., Murray, 1997;Wertheim, 2004) and health care (Nagourney,
2004; Wiederhold & Wiederhold, 2005), I prefer to focus here on three important
domains that are often slighted in discussions of this type. The domains I focus on
are private experience, home and family, and religion and spirituality.

9.1 Private Experience

I will begin with a domain that I label “private experience.” By this term, I
mean a large category of human life, that which occurs outside of the contexts of
work, social service, one’s worship community, and the family. Basically, private
experience is what one does and experiences when no one else is watching.
Perhaps ironically, a consideration of the societal impact of VR must include a
consideration of private experience.

In considering the potential impact of VR on private experience, I wish to

apply an interpretive framework that is controversial in its own right: Freudian
psychoanalytic theory. In doing this, I am aware that in many circles Freud is
considered problematic, inaccurate, or passé. However, it is also true that, in some
sense, “we all speak Freud” (Gay, 1989, p. xiii); many of Freud’s ideas are well
known in American society and form a basis for common discussion.

It is fair to say that many of Freud’s concepts have at least an heuristic value.
From this angle, several Freudian notions cast VR in a very interesting light.

In particular, these involve the notion of primary instincts, and the role of
delayed gratification in the development of both individual personality and social
structure.

Freud postulated the existence of two primary instincts, Eros and Thanatos,
or, crudely put, sex and death (Freud, 1923/1961b). For our purposes, it may be
useful to recast these as primal impulses for sexuality and aggression.(These
hypothetical impulses are, at the least, compatible with contemporary conceptions
of evolutionary psychology; see Buss, 1995, 1996.) On the one hand, Freud
considered these urges to be primary, primal, and powerful. On the other hand, for
Freud, the very pillars of society involve the suppression, repression, and
sublimation of these primal urges. As Freud put it, “a progressive renunciation of

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constitutional instincts, whose activation might afford the ego primary pleasure,
appears to be one of the foundations of the development of human civilization”
(Freud, 1907/1995a, p. 435).

For Freud, the whole process of socialization involves redirecting the child’s
energy away from immediate gratification, and towards delayed gratification. This
is necessary in order to move the child away from operating on the basis of the
pleasure principle (basically, a combination of ‘if it feels good, do it,’ and ‘I want
it all, and I want it now’) and towards operating on the basis of the reality principle
(the idea that behavior should address external or real world constraints, demands,
and opportunities). Without delay of gratification to strengthen the adherence to the
reality principle, in Freud’s scheme, there would be little work, certainly no art, no
science, no social organization above that of the family (if that), actually no
civilization at all. (See: Freud, 1911/1995b, 1930/1961a.)

In the future world that I have described, VR will place many impulses
within reach of instant virtual gratification, with no immediate social or legal
consequences. By doing this, VR will radically change some of the fundamental
rules on which the game of life has been played throughout the entire length of
human history. Surely this may have momentous social consequences. What will
these be?
The issue of impulse gratification is worth consideration by itself. Will the
immediate gratification of impulses available on VR make people less capable of
delaying gratification in the real world? Or, will the release of tension provided by
gratification in the virtual world make people more capable of focusing on work
and life in the real world? Or, as is so often the case today, will we see one
outcome with certain personality configurations, and the other with different
personality configurations? Beyond the matter of impulse gratification generally
are the issues of aggressive and sexual impulses specifically. Let us consider these
separately.

9.1.1 Aggressive Impulses

Will the acting out of violent or aggressive scenarios in the virtual world
make us more likely to act violently or aggressively in the real world? Or, will the
release of violent impulses make us more peaceful in the real world? Or, here
again, will it be one way for some sorts of people, and a different way for others?

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 The first two of these points of view are well expressed in the episode of The
X-Files to which I made reference earlier. In the episode, the protagonists are
discussing an immersive first-person-shooter-type seamless VR game.

SCULLY: Mulder, what - what purpose does this game serve except to add to a
culture of violence in a country that's already out of control?

MULDER: Who says it adds to it?

SCULLY: You think that taking up weapons and creating gratuitous virtual
mayhem has any redeeming value whatsoever? I mean, that the testosterone frenzy
that it creates stops when the game does?

MULDER: That's rather sexist, isn't it? (Beat. Scully won’t go there, so Mulder
takes a different tack.) I mean, maybe the game provides an outlet for certain
impulses, that it fills a void in our genetic makeup that the more civilizing effects
of society failed to provide for.

SCULLY: Well, that must be why men feel the great need to blast the crap out of
stuff. (Gibson, Maddox, & Carter, 2000; unofficial transcript)

Evidence from social science research is not hopeful in this regard. Exposure
to violent video games seemed to increase interpersonal aggression, at least in the
laboratory, for certain kinds of people (Anderson & Bushman, 2001; Anderson &
Dill, 2000; Irwin & Gross, 1995; cp. Ivory, 2001). Participating in a violent VR
game produced more aggressive thoughts than either watching this game or acting
out the physical movements (Calvert & Tan, 1994); indeed, playing violent video
games seems to lead people to think of themselves as more aggressive people
overall (Uhlmann & Swanson, 2004). Pop folklore is also discouraging; as one T-
shirt slogan puts it, among the pearls of wisdom that one learns from video games
is the lesson that “there is no problem that cannot be overcome by violence”
(“Everything,” n.d.). Humor like this is often a vehicle for conveying widespread
but socially unacceptable attitudes. The issue of aggression, violence, and VR is
one that deserves comprehensive research.

9.1.2 Sexual Impulses

It appears to be the case that many people use the Internet to fulfill sexual
needs, sometimes in ways that strongly suggest the need for professional
therapeutic intervention (Cooper, 2002). How much more likely will it be the case

56
that people will use VR to fulfill sexual needs, especially when haptic sensing and
haptic feedback mechanisms become more highly developed?

Calvert (2002) has pointed out several issues involving the acting out of
sexual impulses via VR. On the positive front, this author suggested the possibility
that people will be able to learn social skills through virtual environments (VE) that
are transferable to real world contexts. Calvert used the analogous experience of
current Internet users interacting via multiuser domains (MUDs):

In text-based Internet MUD applications, many characters meet online and

engage in virtual sex. Some even get married in virtual ceremonies. These
fantasy relationships provide an opportunity for safe sex because there is no
danger of contracting or spreading a sexually transmitted disease.

Users also are engaged in an experience with another person, allowing them
to participate within the boundaries of a shared sexual fantasy rather than an
individual one. By knowing how a partner feels and what a partner enjoys, a
player may become better able to interact with real partners by
understanding their needs. (Calvert, 2002, p. 674, citation omitted)

As interesting as Calvert’s perspective is, there are problems with

extrapolating from the MUD experience of the present to the VR experience of the
future. If the entity with whom one interacts intimately in a VR simulation is an
avatar of another human, then the potentially positive effects that Calvert has
described might possibly occur. However, I would point out that much sexuality in
the VR realm is likely to include interactions with AI characters, not human ones;
in particular, I anticipate that the AI characters involved will be programmed
specifically to satisfy the human user’s expressed desire, acting essentially as a VR
sex slave. The availability of a compliant sexual slave seems to be a popular
fantasy; the concept of “Stepford wife” has been a part of American mainstream
popular consciousness for over three decades (Goldman, 1974; Levin, 1972;
Rudnick, 2004). However popular this fantasy is, its attainment is not the way in
which one should expect to gain the skills at interpersonal communication that are
a foundational element of mature adult sexual relationships (see, e.g., Hyde &
DeLamater, 2003). How will the widespread availability of seamless (some would
say zipless) VR sexuality affect the development of interpersonal skills and
interactions between humans in the real world? (Regarding the term “zipless”: see
Jong, 1973.)

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 Calvert also noted areas in which VR sexual experiences might have
negative social effects.

The anonymity afforded by cyberspace currently allows sexual deviants to

act out with impunity. Issues of imitation, disinhibition, and desensitization
may become serious issues as sexual activity becomes an immersive, online
option.

Ethical issues, such as marital fidelity, will also be experienced in virtual

spaces. How will a person feel if their [sic] partner has virtual sex with an
imaginary character, or with a character who is a real person in another
location? Will betrayal and infidelity be experienced? (Calvert, 2002, pp.
674-675, citation omitted)

These issues should be considered at greater length. Research cited earlier

(Anderson & Dill, 2000; see also Funk, et al., 2003) suggests that, as people are
exposed to violence in video games, they become desensitized to aggression in real
life, and disinhibited in regard to acting out aggressive impulses in real life. We
have no reason to believe that it will be any different in regard to VR sexuality.
That is, repeated immersion in VR sexual scenarios may strengthen the expectation
that, in the real world, as well, one’s partner should be expected to do anything one
wishes, without regard to one’s partner’s preferences. Beyond this, experiences in
the virtual world may create the expectation that the acting out of violent or
sadistic impulses during sexual behavior is normal and should be met with by
compliance from one’s partner. Such would be suggested by research conducted
regarding exposure to violent pornographic films (Malamuth & Check, 1981). In a
country that is already awash in sexual violence (Laumann, Gagnon, Michael, &
Michaels, 1994; Schafran, 1995), these are not expectations that we should
reinforce.

Even without the issue of violence involved, the availability of VR sexuality

might lead to deterioration of sexual relationships in the real world. Such would be
the extrapolation we might make from studies of the effect of printed or filmed
pornographic images; exposure to such images in the laboratory seemed to make
men rate “average” women, or their own partners, as less attractive (Kenrick,
Guiterres, & Goldberg, 1989; Zillman, 1989). Thus, one possible consequence of
widespread seamless VR might be a weakening of marital and familial bonds,
resulting in an increase in the divorce rate. This would be a highly negative
consequence, given what we know about the longterm effects of divorce on the
children of such marriages (e.g., Wallerstein, Lewis, & Blakeslee, 2000).

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 In addition, although the broader societal effects of large-scale divorce rates
are only dimly known, one cannot imagine that increasing the divorce rate would
add to social stability. Certainly it would be ironic for VR technology, which is
intended to help individuals better adapt to the demands of the real world, to
instead cause the deterioration of relationships in the real world. This is a good
point at which to consider specifically the domain of home and family.

9.2 Home and Family

Most people marry and have children; the resulting family groups have been
the basic units of essentially all human cultures. What will happen when a VR
simulation of this experience is available? The popularity of The Sims—“the best-
selling computer game ever” (Hamilton, 2004, p. 78)—suggests that people want
to try out alternative simulated lives and relationships. How will the availability of
virtual family life affect people’s desire or intention to pursue family life in the real
world?

Consider this scenario. A single person, Jane or John Smith, ends work for
the day and is at home. “Home,” in a real-world sense, consists of a chair or two, a
bed, a closet, a refrigerator, a table that serves as both dining and work space, a
food preparation area, and a personal hygiene area, all of which fits into a studio
apartment. However, this home also includes a personal VR system. Through this
system, Smith lives in a mansion, with marble staircases, sauna, an Olympic-sized
pool, private helipad, and other accoutrements. In this mansion lives, not only
Smith, but an attractive, caring partner, who may exist as an AI construct. Perhaps
there are children living in the home as well, an entire family or extended family
unit. Family and friends come by and visit, perhaps based in distributed VR
networks that enable Smith’s real-world friends to interact in real time, or perhaps
based on AI constructs. Family life, recreation, and adventure—almost every
aspect of human life, short of the intake of nutrition and the elimination of waste
products—can be simulated through VR. But how will this affect the individual or
society?

One can imagine different possible outcomes here. One that seems plausible
is that fewer people will marry and form family units. Although marriage and
family life have their benefits, they also pose inevitable challenges and frustrations.
VR, on the other hand, can provide a virtual simulation of a stress-free life.

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 One’s virtual partner can be programmed to be continually and unfailingly
attentive, considerate, forever youthful, and eternally compliant with the wishes of
the user of the VR system. One’s virtual children can be programmed to be
consistently polite and deferent; some other virtual character will change the
diapers. In the short run, the opportunity to visit such a virtual world might be an
enticing prospect for many people. However, in the long run, continual exposure to
such a virtual world might raise unrealistic expectations concerning people in the
real world. Frequent immersion in such a virtual world might allow one to escape
from the tasks of adult life rather than attend to them. Ultimately, such immersion
might make people less willing, or even less capable, of dealing with the
frustrations involved in participating in real-world marriages and family units.
(Consider my earlier comments on instant gratification, of which the flip side is
intolerance for frustration.)

A decrease in the rate at which marriages and family units are formed and
maintained should be considered a major negative consequence. As it is, the
current rates of birth in developed countries are so low as to instigate major
negative consequences in society in coming years (Kotlikoff & Burns, 2004;
Longman, 2004; e.g., Faiola, 2005). A development that would retard the
formation of stable family units in which children would enter the world would
exacerbate what will already be a difficult situation. (An exception to this would
involve areas where longstanding sexist, infanticidal practices involving the
selective murder of female infants has left a surplus male population; because a
male surplus is associated with increased crime and even warfare [Hudson & den
Boer, 2004], it may be advisable to encourage virtual families in such areas.)

Of course, it may be argued that the availability of an escape from reality,

judiciously applied, would ‘let off steam’ and allow the person to deal with the
frustrations of the real world more effectively (cf. C. Pearce, quoted in Heins &
Bertin, 2002). It is difficult to see how this perspective would apply to this issue; it
seems counterintuitive to think that avoidance of the family might solve family
problems. However, this difference in perspectives underlines the importance of
settling this question with empirical research, rather than a priori arguments.

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9.3 Religion and Spirituality

We come finally to the realm of religion and spirituality. Casual

investigation of the Internet suggests that many people like to involve themselves
with their faith communities in a virtual way. There is even a Roman Catholic
pseudo-“diocese” that exists only in virtual space (Gaillot, n.d.).

However, as can be seen with other comparisons between the Internet and
virtual environments, VR has the potential to take things in a very different
direction than the Internet. It is one thing to interact with others in a virtual space,
and engage in the act of worshipping a god or goddess. It is another thing
altogether to react in this virtual space with the gods themselves—something that
VR can emulate. To go farther, it is yet another thing for one to become the
embodiment of a god or goddess (the original meaning of “avatar”)—another
experience that VR can emulate. What might be the societal consequences of such
circumstances?

One framework used in the academic psychology of religion frames religion

and spirituality as having five dimensions: knowledge, ideology, ritual, emotion,
and behavior (adapted from Glock, 1962). VR has the potential to heavily
influence at least two of these. In terms of knowledge, all the educational potential
of VR is apparent here; for example, VR makes it possible to achieve total
immersion in the holy languages of one’s tradition, whether that language be
Sanskrit, Latin, or Sindarin. In terms of ritual, VR would give one the opportunity
to conduct almost any ritual, regardless of time, place, or one’s hierarchical status
(e.g., not being officially consecrated as clergy).

What will it mean when spiritual rituals can be enacted virtually by anyone?
At any time, or place? Will something be lost by divorcing rituals from their
traditional context in time or space? Or, will the potentially greater amount of
participation add to the spiritual lives of the people who enact these rituals? Will
the process of being involved with an in-person worship community become
passé? Or, will the experience of private spirituality change independently of the
evolution of communal spirituality?

One aspect of spirituality that may be transformed thoroughly is the matter

of spiritual experimentation. Such experimentation in the real world sometimes
carries social consequences that are uncomfortable (e.g., being around strangers) or
downright aversive (e.g., conflict with or even excommunication from one’s
‘home’ tradition). No such consequences exist in the virtual world.

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 In American consumer culture, some people already practice a form of what
some sociologists call “supermarket religion,” picking what they want from this or
that tradition. In the VR world of 2025, however, these opportunities will be
considerably expanded. One may pick any tradition, of any time, existing in the
real world or in the imagination, and try it on for size. For that matter, one may
create one’s own tradition, and populate it with ritual, symbol, and virtual co-
worshippers (either avatars of real world humans, or AI constructs).

No doubt this will come with social consequences, as well. Will real world
spiritual communities decline as virtual private spiritual pseudo-communities
flourish? Or, will people try on the virtual experience and find that they now want
to engage the real world counterpart? Will people reconfigure worship
communities in a distributed VR environment? Will people more easily change
(i.e., convert) from the religious communities of their heritage? If so, what will that
do to traditions that have added some stability to their communities for millennia?

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 10. DRAWBACKS OF VIRTUAL REALITY

With new technology also comes disadvantages . These techniques take

time, effort, and money to implement. People may experience a feeling of a loss of
reality and a feeling of isolation as they interact with an artificial world, instead of
a real world with real people. Finally, virtual reality can increase unemployment as
fewer people are needed to design projects: products in their design stage no longer
need to be built. However, new jobs will open up in the field of designing virtual
reality technology.

Virtual reality is hitting the world as the next dominant improvement in

technology. Like the Internet, virtual reality began with specific uses in mind, but
is now becoming more and more versatile. At first seen as a new method of
entertainment, virtual reality is now being used in more and more applications,
from the business world to the clothing industry. In the years ahead, virtual reality
will become cheaper and even more wide-spread. It has even been suggested that
in the future, virtual reality can be used to "educate us to become aware of and to
control...emotions...and to train our children that violence and dishonesty" are
wrong by showing the consequences of such actions.

Just what is virtual reality? Webster’s Dictionary defines it as "an artificial

environment which is experienced through...sights and sounds provided by a
computer and in which one’s actions partially determine what happens in the
environment" . Put more simply, virtual reality is an extension of one’s senses--a
way of interacting with and manipulating a computer-based environment. Jaron
Lanier is the most famous of the so-called "pioneers" of virtual reality. He founded
the CEO of VPL, a company that was among the first to develop the technology.

Currently, virtual reality uses magnetic tracking to measure movements

within an environment. However, this method has been proven to give users
feelings of nausea or drunkenness. Because of its imprecision and disorientation
due to hospital medical equipment, this method cannot always be effectively used
in the medical field. Future virtual reality will make use of ultrasonic waves to
track movements and activities in the artificial environments. This will enable
hospitals to use virtual reality and decrease ill-effects of users.

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 Virtual reality is already being used in a wide range of fields: business,
various industries, the military, entertainment, education, and medicine. In the
future, the Air Force, commercial airlines, and medical schools will use virtual
reality more extensively for training purposes and the on-line clothing stores will
use virtual reality to facilitate shopping and boost sales.

Businesses use virtual reality to analyze data through the use of 3D charts
and graphs. In the design stage, simulations allow programmers to see products
without having to build the actual product, saving money and time. Automotive
industries use virtual reality to test designs and safety and check for passenger
comfort. Airlines use virtual reality to train pilots and factories use it to train
employees working with dangerous equipment. The military similarly uses virtual
reality for simulated training. NASA used virtual reality to simulate every
imaginable situation that might occur in space to familiarize astronauts with the
situations and consequently improved their performance and comfort level during
unexpected occurrences.

Entertainment has long used virtual reality through games such as Atari,
Nintendo, and computer games. Now, there is laser tag and games used by
restaurants such as Dave and Busters, in Dallas, where customers waiting for food
can lead each other through virtual mazes. Virtual reality education can take the
forms of virtual tours and labs. "If you can’t afford the time or the ticket to get to
India and see the Taj Mahal, slap on a pair of VR goggles and there you are".
Virtual reality allows students and adults to travel abroad, tour famous sites, and
learn all about them without leaving a room. Virtual labs allow students to dissect
animals without having to kill them and to perform experiments without requiring
costly equipment.

In the medical field, psychiatrists are using virtual reality to treat phobias by
exposing patients to their fears in risk-free situations. Virtual reality advances are
already being made in surgery. By making small incisions, watching 3D images
taken by a camera inside the patient, and inserting a robotic arm, a surgeon can
move tools inside a patient without having to cut them open--reducing pain and
recovery time. This technique is still a long way from everyday use, but was first
used in 1997 to perform a gallbladder operation.

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 The future of virtual reality is looking very bright. Various fields are
continuously looking for new ways to improve and expand their uses of virtual
reality. Developments in virtual reality will drastically change the way pilots fly
and are trained, medical students are educated, surgeons practice and hone their
skills, and people shop. While these changes are developing, it will take time and
money to fully implement them.

The Air Force is currently developing "peripheral vision displays" that

convey information to pilots without them needing to look around them. Similarly,
military aviators will soon be using head-mounted displays called virtual retinal
displays which will "allow pilots to see the surrounding environment while also
accessing digital navigation cues and images that appear to float several feet
away".

An aircraft manufacturer named Embraer has begun employing virtual pilots

and passengers, created by a human simulation software from Engineering
Animation Inc., called Jack. It is used to improve the ergonomics of the cockpit
designs, and evaluate the maintainability of designs, along with telling engineers
"what they can see and reach, how comfortable they are, why they’re getting hurt
or tired, and other important information". Jack has saved the company money,
reduced time to market, and helped to deliver higher-quality airplanes.

The medical field is developing ways to perform virtual surgery to train its
surgeons. Through the use of 3D glasses, surgeons will also be able to see and feel
the results of each of his or her movements. These techniques will "allow [the
surgeons] to train in a safe, predictable, and reproducible setting,...review their
work and enhance their skills,...and learn and practice new techniques or
procedures". Soon, virtual reality will allow physicians and their patients to
simulate the surgery experience before actually undergoing it. Medical and nursing
students will practice their skills on simulated patients before seeing actual
patients, reducing mistakes, but some fear that this may threaten the "humanistic
elements of the doctor-patient relationship" . Finally, medical schools will replace
complex diagrams with virtual skulls to learn more about the brain.

The on-line clothing industry is also making advancements in virtual reality.

Philip Treleaven is the leader in what might be called a "virtual changing room". A
scanner measures 300,000 points on the body and then projects an image of what
clothes would look like on a person so that shoppers can try on clothes in their own
homes. Land’s End has already placed a 3D woman online to allow customers to

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visualize how clothes would look on their bodies, in the hopes that this would
encourage more customers to buy.

With all these advancements come numerous benefits. Virtual reality

reduces training costs and costs incurred by building actual products in the design
phase, reduces time-to-market, and increases competitive advantage, productivity,
success rate of completing projects on time, safety--through training of surgeons on
virtual bodies, simulations of automobile and airplane designs, etc--, education,
knowledge about foreign countries and patient care.

But with new technology also comes disadvantages. These techniques take
time, effort, and money to implement. People may experience a feeling of a loss of
reality and a feeling of isolation as they interact with an artificial world, instead of
a real world with real people. Finally, virtual reality can increase unemployment as
fewer people are needed to design projects: products in their design stage no longer
need to be built. However, new jobs will open up in the field of designing virtual
reality technology.

Despite these disadvantages, the benefits of using virtual reality far outweigh
them. It is a force that everyone needs to know about and be able to use. It will
soon become a dominant force in all industries. In order to fully utilize this
technology people will have to become as familiar with it as they are with the
Internet.

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 11. CONCLUSION

Affordable, PC-driven projection based virtual reality systems are a popular

topic of investigation right now, and will probably soon become widespread. Our
particular hope for such systems is that they will help expand VR out of the
research and corporate labs, into public and educational venues.

Our prototype display has now been functional and in use for most of a year.
The entire system cost roughly $20,000 to construct; we estimate that a new one
could currently be built for about half that amount.

In basic performance tests, as well as day-to-day use, the low-cost PC

system is comparable to one using an SGI Onyx2. The LCD projectors and black
screen provide a bright display with better contrast than older systems using CRT
projectors. The lightweight passive stereo glasses are less encumbering, and less
fragile, than active glasses. The system as a whole can be maintained by a group of
students who have only recently started learning about VR.

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 12. BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/other-gadgets/virtual-
reality.htm

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality

3. http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/docs/forum/vr/

4. http://www.allfreeessays.com/topics/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-
virtual-reality/0

5. http://www.exampleessays.com/essay_search/disadvantages_virtual.html

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