Overview of what people are doing with VR systems, which imply VR technology applications
1. Games: When Gaming you’re exactly in the same building or same jungle as your opponents or enemies, and beneath your feet is the same ground your opponents or enemies stand on. Some games are real gamified sports.
2. Immersive cinema: For movies, music, videos, & events you’re convinced that actions are happening live before your eyes in a real physical place, and to the extreme, you are one of the actors in the scenes.
3. Telepresence: For exploring new places (all over the world, or universe) you’re convinced that you are physically there. Attending live events is also possible.
4. Virtual societies: Whereas telepresence makes you feel like you are in another part of the physical world, VR also allows you to form entire societies that remind you of the physical world.
5. Empathy: The first-person perspective provided by VR is a powerful tool for causing people to feel empathy for someone else’s situation. The world struggles with acceptance and equality for others of different race, religion, age, gender, sexuality, social status, and education, while the greatest barrier to progress is that most people cannot fathom what it is like to have a different identity.
6. Education: In education super complex scientific concepts become a piece of cake. In engineering, mathematics, and the sciences, VR offers the chance to visualize geometric relationships in difficult concepts or data that are hard to interpret. Furthermore, VR is naturally suited for practical training because skills developed in a realistic virtual environment may transfer naturally to the real environment. The motivation is particularly high if the real environment is costly to provide or poses health risks.
7. Virtual prototyping: In the real world, we build prototypes to understand how a proposed design feels or functions. Thanks to 3D printing and related technologies, this is easier than ever. At the same time, virtual prototyping enables designers to inhabit a virtual world that contains their prototype. They can quickly interact with it and make modifications. They also have opportunities to bring clients into their virtual world so that they can communicate their ideas.
8. Health care: There is an increasing trend toward distributed medicine, in which doctors train people to perform routine medical procedures in remote communities around the world. Doctors can provide guidance through telepresence, and also use VR technology for training. In another use of VR, doctors can immerse themselves in 3D organ models that were generated from medical scan data. This enables them to better plan and prepare for a medical procedure by studying the patient’s body shortly before an operation. They can also explain medical options to the patient or his/her family so that they may make more informed decisions. In yet another use, VR can directly provide therapy to help patients. Examples include overcoming phobias and stress disorders through repeated exposure, improving or maintaining cognitive skills in spite of aging, and improving motor skills to overcome balance, muscular, or nervous system disorders. VR systems could also improve longevity by enabling aging people to virtually travel, engage in fun physical therapy, and overcome loneliness by connecting with family and friends through an interface that makes them feel present and included in remote activities.
9. Augmented and mixed reality: In many applications, it is advantageous for users to see the live, real world with some additional graphics superimposed to enhance its appearance. This has been referred to as augmented reality or mixed reality (both of which are considered to be part of VR). By placing text, icons, and other graphics into the real world, the user could leverage the power of the Internet to help with many operations such as navigation, social interaction, and mechanical maintenance. Many applications to date are targeted at helping businesses to conduct operations more efficiently. Imagine a factory environment in which workers see identifying labels above parts that need to assembled, or they can look directly inside of a machine to determine potential replacement parts.
10. New human experiences: Finally, the point might be to simply provide a new human experience. Through telepresence, people can try experiences through the eyes of robots or other people. However, we can go further by giving people experiences that are impossible (or perhaps deadly) in the real world. Most often, artists are the ones leading this effort. Exciting adventures lie ahead! What if we change our scale? Imagine being 2mm tall and looking ants right in the face. Compare that to being 50m tall and towering over a city while people scream and run from you. What if we simulate the effect of drugs in your system? What if you could become your favorite animal? What if you became a piece of food? The creative possibilities for artists seem to be endless. We are limited only by what our bodies can comfortably handle.
