Special issue: Virtual reality

✍ Scribed by Sankar Jayaram

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 308 KB
• Volume: 29
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0010-4485
• DOI: 10.1016/s0010-4485(97)00016-x

✦ Synopsis

In very simple terms, virtual reality (VR) refers to a synthetic or virtual environment that gives a person an illusion of reality. This definition would include any synthetic environment which gives a person a feeling of 'being there'. Most commonly, however, VR refers to computer-generated synthetic environments. The exposure most people have to virtual reality is through reports in the media, through science magazines and through science fiction. However, to researchers involved in the science of virtual reality, the applications are much more mundane and the problems are much more real.

What separates virtual reality from traditional computer graphics? According to many researchers, 'if you are not immersed, it is not VR'. The feeling of immersion is identified as the most important feature of VR, separating it from other forms of computer-aided simulations.