"Virtuality" redirects here. For other uses, see Virtuality (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Simulated reality.
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A person wearing a virtual reality headset called the "HTC Vive". It was developed in co-production betweenHTC and Valve Corporation.
Virtual reality (or VR) is a computertechnology that uses software-generated realistic images, sounds and other sensations to replicate an a real environment or an imaginary setting, and simulates a user's physical presence in this environment to enable the user to interact with this space. A person using virtual reality equipment is typically able to "look around" the artificial world, move about in it and interact with features or items that are depicted. Virtual realities artificially create sensory experiences, which can include sight, touch, hearing, and, less commonly, smell. Most 2016-era virtual realities are displayed either on a computer monitor, a projector screen, or with a virtual reality headset (also called head-mounted display). Some simulations include additional sensory information and provide sounds through speakers or headphones.
Some advanced haptic systems in the 2010s now include tactile information, generally known as force feedback in medical, video gaming and military applications. Some VR systems used in video games can transmit vibrations and other sensations to the user via the game controller. Virtual reality also refers to remote communication environments which provide a virtual presence of users with through telepresence and telexistence or the use of a virtual artifact (VA), either through the use of standard input devices such as a keyboard and mouse, or through multimodaldevices such as a wired glove oromnidirectional treadmills. The immersive environment can be similar to the real world in order to create a lifelike experience—for example, in simulations for pilot or combat training, which depict realistic images and sounds of the world, where the normal laws of physics apply, or it can differ significantly from reality, such as in VR video games that take place in fantasy settings, where gamers can use fictional magic and telekinesispowers.
Etymology and terminology
In 1938, Antonin Artaud described the illusory nature of characters and objects in the theatreas "la réalité virtuelle" in a collection of essays, Le Théâtre et son double. The English translation of this book, published in 1958 asThe Theater and its Double,[1] is the earliest published use of the term "virtual reality". The term "artificial reality", coined by Myron Krueger, has been in use since the 1970s. The term "virtual reality" was used in The Judas Mandala, a 1982 science fiction novel byDamien Broderick. The Oxford English Dictionary cites a 1987 article titled "Virtual reality",[2] but the article is not about VR technology. "Virtual" has had the meaning "being something in essence or effect, though not actually or in fact" since the mid-1400s, "...probably via sense of "capable of producing a certain effect" (early 1400s)".[3] The term "virtual" was used in the "[c]omputer sense of "not physically existing but made to appear by software" since 1959.[3] The term "reality" has been used in English since the 1540s, to mean "quality of being real," from "French réalité and directly Medieval Latin realitatem (nominative realitas), from Late Latin realis".[4]
Virtual reality is also called "virtual realities", "immersive multimedia", "augmented reality" (or AR), "artificial reality" [5] or "computer-simulated reality".
History
Before the 1950s
View-Master, a stereoscopic visual simulator, was introduced in 1939.
The first references to the concept of virtual reality came from science fiction. Stanley G. Weinbaum's 1935 short story "Pygmalion's Spectacles" [6] describes a goggle-based virtual reality system with holographic recording of fictional experiences, including smell and touch. Virtual reality in modern meaning was popularized by Jaron Lanierthrough his company VPL Research, which held many of the mid-1980s VR patents. VPL developed the first head-mounted display (HMD), the EyePhone, and introduced the Haptic Input DataGlove.[7]
1950–1970
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 theSensorama in 1962, along with five short films to be displayed in it while engaging multiple senses (sight, sound, smell, and touch). Predating digital computing, the Sensorama was a mechanical device, which reportedly still functions today. Around the same time, Douglas Engelbart used computer screens as both input and output devices. In 1968, Ivan Sutherland, with the help of his student Bob Sproull, created what is widely considered to be the first virtual reality andaugmented reality (AR) head-mounted display(HMD) system. It was primitive both in terms of user interface and realism, and the HMD to be worn by the user was so heavy that it had to be suspended from the ceiling. The graphics comprising the virtual environment were simple wire-frame model rooms. The formidable appearance of the device inspired its name, The Sword of Damocles.
1970–1990
Battlezone, an arcade video game from 1980, used 3D vector graphics to immerse the player in a VR world.(Atari).
Also notable among the earlier hypermediaand virtual reality systems was the Aspen Movie Map, which was created at MIT in 1978. 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. Atari founded a research lab for virtual reality in 1982, but the lab was closed after two years due to Atari Shock (North American video game crash of 1983). However, its hired employees, such as Tom Zimmerman, Scott Fisher, Jaron Lanier and Brenda Laurel, kept their research and development on VR-related technologies. By the 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 in 1985. VPL Research has developed several VR devices like the Data Glove, the Eye Phone, and the Audio Sphere. VPL licensed the Data Glove technology to Mattel, which used it to make an accessory known as the Power Glove. While the Power Glove was hard to use and not popular, at US$75, it was early affordable VR device.
During this time, virtual reality was not well known, though it did receive media coverage in the late 1980s. Most of its popularity came from marginal cultures, like cyberpunks, who viewed the technology as a potential means for social change, and drug culture, who praised virtual reality not only as a new art form, but as an entirely new frontier.[8] The concept of virtual reality was popularized in mass media by movies such as Brainstorm(1983) and The Lawnmower Man. The VR research boom of the 1990s was accompanied by the non-fiction book Virtual Reality (1991) by Howard Rheingold.[9] The book served to demystify the subject, making it more accessible to researchers outside of the computer sphere and sci-fi enthusiasts.
Once the industry began to attract media coverage, some even compared the innovations in virtual reality to the Wright Brothers' pioneering invention of the airplane.[10] In 1990, Jonathan Waldern, a VR Ph.D, demonstrates "Virtuality" at the Computer Graphics 90 exhibition staged at London's Alexandra Palace. This new system was an arcade machine that would use avirtual reality headset to immerse players.CyberEdge and PCVR, two VR industry magazines, started to publish in the early 1990s. However, most ideas about VR remained theoretical due to the limited computing power available at the time. The extremely high cost of the technology made it impossible for consumers to adopt. When the Internet became widely available, this became the technology focus for most people. The VR industry mainly provided VR devices for medical, flight simulation, automobile industry design, and military training purposes from 1970 to 1990.
1990–2000
In 1991, Sega announced the Sega VRheadset for arcade games and the Mega Driveconsole. It used LCD screens in the visor, stereo headphones, and inertial sensors that allowed the system to track and react to the movements of the user's head.[11] In the same year, Virtuality launched and went on to become the first mass-produced, networked, multiplayer VR entertainment system. It was released in many countries, including a dedicated VR arcade at Embarcadero Centerin San Francisco. Costing up to $73,000 per multi-pod Virtuality system, they featured headsets and exoskeleton gloves that gave one of the first "immersive" VR experiences.[12] Antonio Medina, a MIT graduate and NASA scientist, designed a virtual reality system to "drive" Mars rovers from Earth in apparent real time despite the substantial delay of Mars-Earth-Mars signals. The system, termed "Computer-Simulated Teleoperation" as published by Rand, is an extension of virtual reality.[13]
In 1991, Carolina Cruz-Neira, Daniel J. Sandinand Thomas A. DeFanti from the Electronic Visualization Laboratory created the first cubic immersive room, replacing goggles by a multi-projected environment where people can see their body and other people around. In that same year, Computer Gaming Worldpredicted "Affordable VR by 1994".[14] By 1994, Sega released the Sega VR-1 motion simulator arcade attraction,[15][16] inSegaWorld amusement arcades. It was able to track head movement and featured 3D polygon graphics in stereoscopic 3D, powered by the Sega Model 1 arcade system board.[17]Also in 1994 Apple released QuickTime VR. A widely available product for interacting with VR models.
A year later, the artist Maurice Benayouncreated the first VR artwork connecting in real time 2 continents: the "Tunnel under the Atlantic" between the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Museum of Contemporary Art inMontreal. The installation included dynamic real time 3d modeling, video chat, spatialized sound and AI content management. TheVirtual Boy was created by Nintendo and was released in Japan on July 21, 1995 and in North America on August 15, 1995.[18] Also in 1995, a group in Seattle created public demonstrations of a "CAVE-like" 270 degree immersive projection room called the Virtual Environment Theater, produced by entrepreneurs Chet Dagit and Bob Jacobson.[19] Then in 1996 the same system was shown in tradeshow exhibits sponsored by Netscape Communications, and championed by Jim Barksdale, for the first time showing VR connected to the Internet with World Wide Web content feeds embedded in VRML 3D virtual world models. Forte released the VFX1, a PC-powered virtual reality headset in 1995, which was supported by games including Descent, Star Wars: Dark Forces, System Shock and Quake. In 1999, entrepreneur Philip Rosedale formed Linden Lab with an initial focus on the development of hardware that would enable computer users to be fully immersed in a 360 degree virtual reality experience. In its earliest form, the company struggled to produce a commercial version of "The Rig," which was realized in prototype form as a clunky steel contraption with several computer monitors that users could wear on their shoulders.[20]That vision soon morphed into the software-based, 3D virtual world Second Life.
A 2013 developer version of Oculus Rift from Oculus VR, a companyFacebook acquired in 2014 for $2 billion
2000–2016
The affordable and accessible Google Cardboard standard.
In 2001, SAS3 or SAS Cube became the first PC based cubic room, developed by Z-A Production (Maurice Benayoun, David Nahon), Barco, Clarté, installed in Laval France in April 2001. The SAS library gave birth to Virtools VRPack. By 2007, Google introduced Street View, a service that shows panoramic views of an increasing number of worldwide positions such as roads, indoor buildings and rural areas. It also features a stereoscopic 3D mode, introduced in 2010.[21] In 2010, Palmer Luckey, who later went on to found Oculus VR, designed the first prototype of the Oculus Rift. This prototype, built on a shell of another virtual reality headset, displayed only 2-D images and was noticeably cumbersome to wear. However, it boasted a 90-degree field of vision that was previously unseen anywhere in the market at the time. This initial design would later serve as a basis from which the later designs came.[22]
In 2013, Nintendo filed a patent for the concept of using VR technology to produce a more realistic 3D effect on a 2D television. A camera on the TV tracks the viewer's location relative to the TV, and if the viewer moves, everything on the screen reorients itself appropriately. "For example, if you were looking at a forest, you could shift your head to the right to discover someone standing behind a tree."[23] In July 2013, Guild Software's Vendetta Online was widely reported as the first MMORPG to support theOculus Rift,[24][25] making it potentially the first persistent online world with native support for a consumer virtual reality headset. Since 2013, there have been several virtual reality devices that seek to enter the market to complement Oculus Rift to enhance the game experience. One, Virtuix Omni, is based on the ability to move in a three dimensional environment through an omnidirectional treadmill.
On March 25, 2014, Facebook purchased a company that makes virtual reality headsets,Oculus VR, for $2 billion.[26] Sony announces Project Morpheus (its code name forPlayStation VR), a virtual reality headset for the PlayStation 4.[27] Google announcesCardboard, a do-it-yourself stereoscopic viewer for smartphones. The user places her smartphone in the cardboard holder, which she wears on her head. In 2015, the Kickstarter campaign for Gloveone, a pair of gloves providing motion tracking and haptic feedback, was successfully funded, with over $150,000 in contributions.[28]
In February–March 2015, HTC partnered withValve Corporation announced their virtual reality headset HTC Vive and controllers, along with their tracking technology called Lighthouse, which utilizes "base stations" mounted to the wall above the user's head in the corners of a room for positional tracking of the Vive headset and its motion controllers using infrared light.[29][30][31][32] The company announced its plans to release the Vive to the public in April 2016 on December 8, 2015.[33][34] Units began shipping on April 5, 2016.[35]
In July 2015, OnePlus became the first company to launch a product using virtual reality.[36] They used VR as the platform to launch their second flagship device the OnePlus 2, first viewable using an app on the Google Play Store,[37] then on YouTube.[38]The launch was viewable using OnePlus Cardboard, based on the Google's own Cardboard platform. The whole VR launch had a runtime of 33 minutes, and was viewable in all countries. Also in 2015, Jaunt, a startup company developing cameras and a clouddistribution platform, whose content will be accessible using an app, reached $100 million in funding from such sources as Disney andMadison Square Garden.[39] On April 27, 2016,Mojang announced that Minecraft is now playable on the Gear VR.[40] Minecraft is still being developed for the Oculus Rift headset but a separate version was released to the Oculus Store for use with the Gear VR. This version is similar to the Pocket Edition of Minecraft.
Use
In fiction
Concerns and challenges
Pioneers and notables
Commercial industries
See also
Notes
References
External links
®- Mobile
- Desktop
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