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The components necessary for building and experiencing a virtual reality environment are as follows:
                 •  Virtual world: A 3D environment that manifests a real-world experience. The human sensory mechanism experiences
                   a complete mental and physical immersion into a make-believe world created through technology.
                 •  VR headset: It is a head-mounted device having a stereoscopic display, head motion tracking sensors and gaming
                   controls. Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR, Oculus Rift, PlayStation are some popular headsets.
                 •  VR gloves: It is a hand machine interface that provides the sense of touch to the virtual items by giving us a feeling
                   of touching, gripping or creating a resistance sensation towards a virtual item.

                 •  Interactivity element: For a better VR experience we need to interact with the content as if it were real. The
                   VR bodysuit translates every movement of the body to the VR environment which is then reflected in the VR
                   environment.

                 Application areas of virtual reality
                 Some of the areas where virtual reality are used is as follows:
                 •  Virtual reality is extensively used in the field of entertainment like
                   gaming and movies.
                 •  VR  medical  training  helps  medical  students  practice  surgical
                   operations in a virtual environment.
                 •  In academic subjects like History and Geography, VR can be used
                   to take students on a journey back through time or place, and
                   develop their interest in the subject.
                 •  VR-enabled  flight  simulators  are  used  for  commercial,  military
                   and space training.
                 •  Using the VR we can virtually go on virtual trips to any place around the world, with zero travel cost.

                                                                Definition

                       Merriam-Webster defines AR as “an enhanced version of reality created by the use of technology to overlay digital
                       information on an image of something being viewed through a device (as a smartphone camera).”




                 16.1.4  Augmented Reality
                 Unlike virtual reality, Augmented Reality (AR) allows us to see the real world
                 with an added virtual layer on top of it. So, we could say that AR enhances the
                 user’s physical environment with real-time relevant digital content. In simple
                 words, AR technology places virtual objects in the real world.
                 The Pokemon Go game released in 2016 is a very popular AR mobile gaming
                 app. In this game, the digital 3D image of an animated character Pokemon is
                 superimposed onto our real surroundings. If we open the app on our mobile
                 phones, it buzzes when it finds a Pokemon nearby and once the user captures
                 it, the user scores a point.
                 AR devices can be of the following types:
                 •  Head-up display (HUD): It is a transparent display projected at eye level of the user such that the user (driver) can
                   access the information without having to look down at a conventional display panel.
                 •  Smartglasses: Smartglasses like Google glass, Microsoft HoloLens 2, Everysight Raptor AR Smartglasses use AR
                   technology.  The  real  view  is  first  captured  on  camera,  then  mounted  on  the  display  which  is  combined  with
                   computer-generated graphics giving us the ultimate AR experience.




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