Articles

Immersive virtual reality   Active Immersive virtual reality is a hypothetical future technology. It consists of a virtual reality/artificial environment in which the user is as immersed as they usually are in consensus reality.
July 07, 2007

Mixed reality   Active Mixed Reality is the merging of real world and virtual worlds to produce new environments where physical and digital objects can co-exist and interact in real-time. It is a mix of augmented reality, augmented virtuality and virtual reality. Combining a variety of 3D modelling, tracking, haptic feedback, computer human interface, simulation, rendering and display techniques, mixing realities can be a complex process at the very cutting edge of today’s technology.
July 06, 2007

A Critical History of Computer Graphics and Animation   Active During the late 1980s and 1990s, virtual reality was touted as a new and emerging application that promised to revolutionize interactivity and man-computer interfaces. In fact, VR is much older than the 1980s, older or nearly as old as the entire computer graphics field itself.
July 06, 2007
Christine Youngblut, Rob E. Johnson, Sarah H. Nash, Ruth A. Wienclaw, and Craig A. Will

Virtual reality   Active Virtual reality (VR) is a technology which allows a user to interact with a computer-simulated environment, be it a real or imagined one. Most current virtual reality environments are primarily visual experiences, displayed either on a computer screen or through special stereoscopic displays, but some simulations include additional sensory information, such as sound through speakers or headphones. Some advanced, haptic systems now include tactile information, generally known as force feedback, in medical and gaming applications. Users can interact with a virtual environment or a virtual artifact (VA) either through the use of standard input devices such as a keyboard and mouse, or through multimodal devices such as a wired glove, the Polhemus boom arm, and omnidirectional treadmill. The simulated environment can be similar to the real world, for example, simulations for pilot or combat training, or it can differ significantly from reality, as in VR games. In practice, 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.
July 05, 2007

Virtual Reality: How Much Immersion Is Enough?   Active In the 1990s, working in the field of virtual reality was cool?VR promised to be the next big thing. Its researchers were besieged with media requests, and futuristic VR systems emerged in popular culture, from Hollywood movies to science fiction novels to TV sitcoms.
July 01, 2007
Doug A. Bowman and Ryan P. McMahan

What Happened To Virtual Reality?   Active One of my new favorite blogs is 10 Zen Monkeys. A recent post titled “What Happened to Virtual Reality” brought me back to a time in 1992 at a spiritual retreat where Jaron Lanier sat barefoot and cross-legged in front of us, speaking about a new technology and concept he called Virtual Reality. I went on to co-found the Boston Computer Society Virtual Reality Group, which at it’s most popular, had 250 people at our monthly meetings.
April 15, 2007
David Evans

Human-Interface Engineers Create Virtual-Reality Experience by Letting Users Walk in Rotating Sphere   Inactive SEATTLE--A new virtual reality device lets you move around your virtual environment by actually walking, running, jumping and rolling without bumping into objects in the room.
April 01, 2006

VISUALIZING THE FUTURE OF VIRTUAL REALITY   Active In reality, VR systems have been in use for more than 20 years, and their primary purpose is to help scientists and engineers visualize the systems they are analyzing or designing. The ability to view objects in three dimensions is extremely useful when determining how complex mechanisms fit together or how large organic molecules interact.
July 01, 2003
Doug Tougaw and Jeff Will