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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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