VIRTUAL

REALITY
By-
JUHI AGARWAL
B.Tech EC-VI, IIET
0819131023
What is Virtual Reality?
•Virtual Reality is one of the
most recent applications of
information technology.

•Virtual reality is a computer

technology that immerses
the participant and makes
him feel that he is in a real
environment while in fact he
is not.
 Definitions of Virtual Reality

•Virtual Reality refers to a high-end user interface that

involves real-time simulation and interactions through
multiple sensorial channels.

•VR is a computer based simulation of environments with 3D

images requiring the use of peripheric equipment such as data
gloves and head mounted displays to allow the user interaction.
The users navigate through the virtual reality environments as if
they did it in the real world, walking inside buildings and
interacting with objects in real-time.

• Myron Krueger (1991) : The promise of artificial realities isn’t

that of reproducing conventional reality or modifying the real
world. It’s the opportunity to create synthetic realties without real
precedents.
 WHY VIRTUAL REALITY?
•Virtual reality (VR) is a technology which allows a user to
interact with a computer -simulated environment. Most 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.
 
•Users can interact with a virtual environment 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/or omnidirectional treadmill.

• VR is able to immerse you in a computer-generated world of

your own making: a room, a city, the interior of human body.
With VR, you can explore any uncharted territory of the human
imagination.
 HISTORY
1960 - The beginnings of VR
1962 - Morton Heilig created a multi-sensory
simulator
1977 - Interaction through body movement
1982 - The first computer- generated movie
1983 - First virtual Environment
1984- The term ‘Cyberspace’
1987- The Holodeck, idea of immersive VR
1992 - A look at the possible negative side of VR
1995 - Virtual Reality Modeling Language
1999 - Virtual Reality movie grosses $750M
worldwide
1962: Sensorama
• Morton Helig, 1950s: Designed and
patented 'the experience theatre' - 180
degree horizontal and 155 degree
vertical. 30 speakers, smell, wind, seats
that moved.
• Couldn't get funding, so created in 1962
the Sensorama
• The Sensorama was an arcade setup
with a vibrating motorcycle seat and
handlebars and two 35mm projectors for
stereo and wind and aromas and stereo
sound as viewer moved through
prerecorded experiences.
• It consisted of five short films to be
displayed in it while engaging multiple
senses (sight, sound, smell, and touch).
1965: Ivan Sutherland (University of Utah)
• 1963: Sketchpad: First interactive CG system with
light pen
• 1965: Sutherland proposes the 'ultimate display':
"The ultimate display would, of course, be a
room within which the computer can control the
existence of matter. ... With appropriate
programming such a display could literally be the
Wonderland into which Alice walked"

•1968: created the first Virtual Reality and

Augmented Reality (AR) Head Mounted
• Display (HMD) system: The Sword of
Damocles
• Real-time computer generated display of
wireframe cube with head tracking
projected onto half-silvered mirrors so the
cube floats in front of the user in the
room.
• Two CRTs mounted by the users head
along with other hardware suspended
from the ceiling (heavy!) by a mechanical
arm.
VR Displays
 1965: First commercial vector display
(IBM, $100K)
 1967: First haptic display: GROPE

project (Brooks, UNC)

UNC uses a ceiling mounted ARM (Argonne

remote manipulator) to test receptor sites for a
drug molecule. The researcher, in virtual reality,
grasps the drug molecule, and holds it up to
potential receptor sites. Good receptor sites
attract the drug, while poor ones repel it. Using a
force feedback system, scientists can easily feel
where the drug can and should go.
 Tracking

Polhemus Fastrak

 1977: First instrumented glove (Sandin & Sayre)

 1979: Polhemus Tracking System (Raab et al.)
 1985 - Jaron Lanier & VPL research
◦ First company focused on VR products
◦ Sold datagloves in 1985 and eyephones in 1988
 1986: Ascension Technologies founded from former
Polhemus employees. Still a leading manufacturer of
electromagnetic tracking systems.
Virtual Environments
 1987: British Aerospace Virtual Cockpit
 1989: NASA VIEW System (Virtual Interface
Environment Workstation)
◦ First complete VR system
VIEW
◦ Project started in the early 80’s
◦ General-purpose, multi-sensory, personal simulator
and telepresence device
◦ Configuration included head and hand tracking, wide
field-of-view stereo head-mounted displays, speech
recognition, 3D audio output and a tracked and CAVE
instrumented glove
 1989: Fake Space Labs: Development of the BOOM
 1992: Virtual Portal (M. Deering, Sun Microsystems)
 1992: CAVE: Cave Automated Virtual Environment
(Carolina Cruz Neira et. al., University of Chicago)

Virtual Portal
The 90s
 1993: Silicon Graphics Reality Engine:
◦ Hardware-supported Gouraud shading, texture
mapping, Z-buffering, anti-aliasing, 200,000
polygons/sec
 1993: OpenGL standard
 1993: PHANToM Haptic Device (T. Massie, K. Salisbury)
 1996: Silicon Graphics Infinite Reality (5M polygons/sec) ARToolKit
 1998: Silicon Graphics Infinite Reality2 (13M
polygons/sec)
 1998: First 6-wall CAVE by TAN at Royal Institute of
Technology in Stockholm
 1999: ARToolKit (Hirokazo Kato, HITLab, UW)

Phantom
Most Recent Developments
•2002: PC graphics & PC clusters (NVIDIA
FX4000: 130M polygons/sec)
• Calit2 has cluster of 34 PCs with
NVIDIA 7900 graphics cards

 2002: DLP/LCD projectors

◦ time sequential (active) stereo
possible with DLP technology
 2002: optical tracking in VR systems
(eg, Vicon, ART)

Optical Tracking System (Vicon)

 Terms of Virtual Reality

•Virtual reality
•Artificial reality
•Computer generated environment
•Computer simulated environment
•Synthetic environment
•Spatial immersion
•Cyberspace
•Virtual worlds
•Virtual presence
inside VR

 scenes projected on walls

 realistic environment
 hydraulic rams!
 real controls
 other people
 Related Technologies
•Vehicle/Flight Simulators
•“Interactive 3D Computer Graphics” (I3D)
•CAD
•Computer animation/special effects
•PC/Video Games
•Interactive Images (e.g., QuickTime VR)
•Augmented Reality
• Combined real world and computer generated
environment
• Video AR: real world video with generated overlay
• See-Through AR: generated display is semi-transparent
•Tele-Presence
• Teleconferencing
• Remote robotic control
•Collaborative systems
Technologies of VR--Hardware

 Head-Mounted Display (HMD)

- A Helmet or a face mask providing the visual and auditory
displays.
- Use LCD or CRT to display stereo images.
- May include built-in head-tracker and stereo headphones
Technologies of VR--Hardware

 Binocular Omni-Orientation Monitor (BOOM)

- Head-coupled stereoscopic display device.
- Uses CRT to provide high-resolution display.
- Convenient to use.
- Fast and accurate built-in tracking.
Technologies of VR--Hardware
 Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE)
- Provides the illusion of immersion by projecting stereo
images on the walls and floor of a room-sized cube.
- A head tracking system continuously adjust the stereo
projection to the current position of the leading viewer.
Technologies of VR--Hardware
 Data Glove
◦ Outfitted with sensors on the fingers as well as an overall
position/orientation tracking equipment.
◦ Enables natural interaction with virtual objects by hand gesture
recognition.
Technologies of VR--Hardware
 Control Devices
◦ Control virtual objects in 3 dimensions.
Technologies of VR--Software
 Toolkits
◦ Programming libraries.
◦ Provide function libraries (C & C++).
 Authoring systems
◦ Complete programs with graphical interfaces for creating
worlds without resorting to detailed programming.
Technologies of VR--Software
 Software packages available in market
◦ Multiverse (Freeware)
◦ Virtual Reality Studio ($100)
◦ Sense8 World Tool Kit (WTK) (over $1000)
◦ Autodesk Cyberspace Development kit (over $1000)
Technologies of VR--Software
 VRML(Virtual Reality Modeling
Language)
- Standard language for interactive simulation
within the World Wide Web.
- Allows to create "virtual worlds" networked via
the Internet and hyperlinked with the World Wide
Web.
- Aspects of virtual world display, interaction and
internetworking can be specified using VRML
without being dependent on special gear like
HMD.
◦ VR models can be viewed by Netscape or IE with a
browser plug-in.
Types

 Immersive
 Augmented
 Text-based

 Desktop (Window on a World)

 Video Mapping
Types of VR System
 Immersive VR
◦ Completely immerse the user's personal viewpoint inside the
virtual 3D world.
◦ The user has no visual contact with the physical word.
◦ Often equipped with a Head Mounted Display (HMD).

 Windows on World(WoW)
◦ Also called Desktop VR.
◦ Using a conventional computer monitor to display
the 3D virtual world.
 NON – IMMERSIVE TYPES

Text-based VR:
When a reader of a certain text form a mental
model of this virtual world in their head from the
description of people, places and things.

Augmented VR:
The idea of taking what is real and adding to it in
some way so that user obtains more information from their
environment.
Types of VR System(Cont’d)
Mixed Reality(Augmented Reality)-cont’d
◦ The seamless merging of real space and virtual space.
◦ Integrate the computer-generated virtual objects into the
physical world which become in a sense an equal part of our
natural environment.

Distributed VR
◦ A simulated world runs on several computers which are
connected over network and the people are able to interact in
real time, sharing the same virtual world.
Types of VR System(Cont’d)
 Telepresence
◦ A variation of visualizing complete computer
generated worlds.
◦ Links remote sensors in the real world with the senses of a
human operator. The remote sensors might be located on a
robot. Useful for performing operations in dangerous
environments.
VR Examples
 Telepresence VR
VR Examples (Cont’d)
 Augmented VR
VR Examples (Cont’d)
 Distributed VR
Architecture of VR System

 Input Processor, Simulation Processor,

Rendering Processor and World
Database. visual,
auditory,
Position & haptic,
Orientation touch…

Input Rendering
Processor Processor

Simulation
Processor

World Database
Components of VR System (Cont’d)
 Input Processor
◦ Control the devices used to input information to the
computer. The object is to get the coordinate data to the
rest of the system with minimal lag time.
◦ Keyboard, mouse, 3D position trackers, a voice
recognition system, etc.
Components of VR System (Cont’d)

 Simulation Processor
– Core of a VR system.
– Takes the user inputs along with any tasks
programmed into the world and determine
the actions that will take place in the virtual
world.
Components of VR System (Cont’d)

 Rendering Processor
– Create the sensations that are output to
the user.
– Separate rendering processes are used for
visual, auditory, haptic and other sensory
systems. Each renderer take a description
of the world stat from the simulation
process or derive it directly from the World
Database for each time step.
Components of VR System (Cont’d)

 World Database (World Description

Files)
– Store the objects that inhabit the world,
scripts that describe actions of those
objects.
Virtual Reality Applications Today
Entertainment
Architecture and City Planning
Rapid and Virtual Prototyping

Medicine Driving and Flight Simulators

Scientific Visualization

Manufacturing Simulations
Robotics, Tele-Robotics

Research Development Daily Use

Applications(cont’d)
 Entertainment
◦ More vivid
◦ Move exciting
◦ More attractive
 Applications (Cont’d)

ARCHITECTURAL:

Desktop computers equipped with

visualization packages and simple interface
devices are far from being an optimal solution
for data presentation and manipulation.
Virtual reality promises a more intuitive way
of interaction . The first attempts to apply VR
as a visualization tool were architectural
walkthrough systems.
 Applications (Cont’d)

MODELLING DESIGNING AND PLANNING :

In modeling virtual reality offers the possibility of

watching in real-time and in real-space what the modeled
object will look like.
Applications (Cont’d)
 Medicine
- Practice performing surgery.
- Perform surgery on a remote patient.
- Teach new skills in a safe, controlled environment.
 Applications (Cont’d)

WEATHER SIMULATION:
TriVis accepts data from
meteorological services such as satellite data,
statistically corrected forecast data ,
precipitation data and fronts information.
Using TriVis to visualize artificial clouds,
meteorologists can predict weather with
increased accuracy . The data gathered and
analyzed by the TriVis system is used by
television weather reporters to show their
audiences storm system.
Applications (Cont’d)
 Manufacturing
◦ Easy to modify
◦ Low cost
◦ High efficient
Applications (Cont’d)

 Education & Training

◦ Driving simulators.
◦ Flight simulators.
◦ Ship simulators.
◦ Tank simulators.
learning to
drive a car....
We’ll find a
cure with the
Virtual
patient...
Hey, that wasn’t there a moment
ago...
Things are easy
with VR.
Real Estate Agents
use it every day.
And Architects love it!

Wait till you

Walk
through!
 ADVANTAGE

 Interaction with the environment.

 User interface.
 user can see and even feel the shaped surface under
his/her fingertips.
 Flight simulators and games.
 CAD/CAE
 Biomedical Engineering the projects mentioned are
use of virtual reality for viewing of X-RAY's and MRI‘s.
 Rendering and 3-D lighting, modeling for resource
management.
 DISADVANTAGE

New technologies have also revealed new problems.

VR in medical treatment is going through some growing
pains.
There are limitations with VR devices as well in regards
to usability.
lack of standardization of hardware and protocols
Most troublesome are the side effects it can induce, like
disorientation, dizziness and nausea.
People often find navigating in 3-D spaces and
performing actions in free space extremely difficult.
practical problems in spatial cognition research
Summary
 Visualization of complicated, large data is helpful
for understanding and analysis.
 VR offers us a new way to interact with
computer.
 VR enables us to experience the virtual world
that is impossible in real world.
 VR is changing our life, eventually VR will
increasingly become a part of our life.
 REFERENCES

http://www.reflex.lth.se
http://www.bmw.com.tw
http://www.panovision.at
http://www.xboxfront.de
http://www.innovation.ca
http://www.activeworlds.com
http://www.hitl.washington.edu
http://www.wam.umd.edu
http://vrlab.epfl.cs
http://www.ourvirtualreality.com
?
THANK YOU