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Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality

Virtual reality (VR) environments, or “worlds”, are computer generated environments that can give users the impression of “being there”.

A very general, rigorous and readable definition of Virtual Reality is given by David Deutsch in the excellent book ”The Fabric of Reality”: “The term refers to any situation in which a person is artificially given the experience of being in a specified environment. For example, a flight simulator - a machine that gives pilots the experience of flying an aircraft without their having to leave the ground - is a type of virtual-reality generator. Such a machine (or, more precisely, the computer that controls it) can be programmed with the characteristics of a real of imaginary aircraft. The aircraft’s environment, such as the weather or the layout of airports, can also be specified in the program. As the pilot practices flying from one airport to another, the simulator causes the appropriate images to appear at the windows, the appropriate jolts and accelerations to be felt, the corresponding readings to be shown on the instruments, and so on. It can incorporate the effects of, for example, turbulence, mechanical failure and proposed modifications to the aircraft. Thus a flight simulator can give the users a wide range of piloting experiences, including some that no real aircraft could: the simulated aircraft could have performance characteristics that violate the laws of physics: it could, for instance, fly through mountains, faster than light or without fuel”.

The best known examples of consumer VR are modern videogames for PCs and consoles powered by game engines. Players navigate near photorealistic computer generated 3D spaces and hear stereoscopic, “spatialized” (i.e. directional and fading with distance) computer generated sounds. Other common features of modern consumer VR games are the possibility of sharing a VR world with remote players (e.g. Valve’s Counter-Strike), and a simulated physics that permit players having realistic interaction with physical objects (e.g. moving or breaking an obstacle).

Another example of modern consumer level VR is the popular virtual world Second Life. Rather than a computer game, Second Life can be considered as a platform where “residents” collaborate at building a virtual world with the tools provided by the system. Residents build avatars, clothes, houses, vehicles etc., buy and sell land and designer items, and organize events. Second Life is a “persistent” VR world that does not disappear when a user logs off. Though at the time of writing (2007) the 3D graphics and simulated physics of Second Life cannot be compared to those of the best VR videogames, Second Life is a very interesting social phenomenon and probably the first example of successful, mass-market persistent VR world.

In these examples of consumer level VR, the user sees the virtual world on a computer screen, and interacts with it via keyboard, mouse and joystick. There are also more “immersive” user interfaces based on VR helmets and force feedback devices that can give a stronger impression of “being there”. It is currently very difficult to create a high-fidelity virtual reality experience, due largely to technical limitations on processing power, image resolution and communication bandwidth. However, those limitations are expected to eventually be overcome as processor, imaging and data communication technologies become more powerful and cost-effective over time.

More than a decade after Neal Stephenson‘s popular science fiction novel Snow Crash (1992), a vision of a future Internet (the Metaverse) based on Virtual Reality (VR), defined many of the Virtual Reality (VR) concepts used today, VR technology is catching up with science fiction literature.

A few years after writing Snow Crash, Stephenson said that his vision had not emerged in reality. This may have been a premature statement, as in 2007 we can see a growing number of operational implementations, with popular events taking place in a Metaverse, and an emergent economy consolidating. The most popular Metaverse implementation (end 2005) is Second Life. The promising new technology Open Croquet is emerging from research laboratories as a “Metaverse Operating System” and a candidate for future implementations. Driven by a huge market and multi-billion investments, the computer gaming industry will certainly generate other important developments.

Of course dedicated VR systems, for example combat and flight simulators developed for military applications, are much more powerful than consumer VR and permit much more realistic VR experiences. However, as processing power, imaging technology, data communication and software keep improving according to Moore’s law, it seems inevitable that consumer level VR will achieve the same performance in only a few years.

VR worlds can be, and ofter are, imaginary worlds with little resemblance to the real world. At the same time, VR technology is frequently used to permit users experiencing remote locations in the real world, for example previewing holiday resorts and real estate. In VR enabled telepresence applications, the computer generates an accurate, real-time rendering of a remore location by using data from cameras and sensor networks at the remote site. An example of sensor network -enabled VR telepresence is the Panoptic C-Thru 3D Video Surveillance System of Panoptic Systems.

Telepresence is the best option to “go to” inaccessible or too dangerous locations and, with forthcoming advances in VR technology, it will also become a more and more appropriate replacement for face to face meetings.

For the medium and long term future, probably within the first half of the century, it is to be expected that advances in neurotechnology will permit developing direct interfaces to the brain that can bypass sensorial channels to make VR environments directly accessible to the brain. This will permit creating fully immersive VR environments, indistinguishable from physical reality.