Virtual Reality (VR)

  Today's topic is: Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality is computer-generated environment with scenes and objects that appear to be real, making the user feel they are actually in their surroundings. So instead of having to view a screen in front of them, users can interact with the virtual world. This environment is made through a device known as a VR headset. The user puts on the headset, which blocks the outside world and replaces it with the virtual world. VR is able to stimulate senses including vision, hearing, smelling, and sometimes even touching. This gives users the sense that they are actually in their virtual surroundings.

Advantage of this awesome technology has started in many fields including education, medicine, entertainment, and culture. For e.x, The Spanish National Research Council was successful in reducing the effects of Parkinson's for many patients using a treatment that included a VR. Also, in many classrooms, teachers use VR to help students who have a difficulty learning. This helps students to retain their knowledge better than it would without the VR. Many museums and galleries use VR to offer virtual visits to help understand history and culture. The UK Ministry of Defense uses VR of combat environments to train their troops. And of course, VR is used a lot for entertainment. A lot of people prefer to play video games using a VR instead of on a screen. The use of VR is getting really popular!

Though the concept of the VR seems very modern, its development began in the 1950s. The concept of VR was around centuries before, as painters in the Panoramic era in the 19th century had tried to make 360 degrees painting. But the evolution of the modern VR begun in the mid 1900s, after the movie 'Pygmalion’s Spectacles' was released in the 1930s. The movie displayed a pair of goggles that allowed you to view a fictional world using smell, taste, and touch. This first sparked the idea of the modern VR, and by the 1950s, the first development of the VR was released by Morton Heilig, a cinematographer. It was called Sensorama, and it was an arcade-style theatre cabinet that would stimulate all the senses. 

In 1960, the first VR helmet was released. It only provided 3D vision and stereo sound, and had no motion tracking. It was not 1961 that motion tracking was born. And like that, VR continued to develop until we have the perfect - or is it? - form of it today. 

I think the VR is a really incredible invention. Who knew you could experience another world with out travelling a step? Today, the VR is no more science fiction - rather, it has developed beyond imagination. What do you think the future of VR will be? Let us know in the comments!

Iberdrola, S.A. “Virtual Reality, the technology of the future.” Iberdrola, 2022, https://www.iberdrola.com/innovation/virtual-reality. Accessed 14 February 2022.

Virtual Reality Society. “History Of Virtual Reality.” Virtual Reality Society, 2017, https://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality/history.html. Accessed 14 February 2022.