Virtual reality is the top talk with the gaming community and almost every other community ever. Currently, most virtual reality has has you putting on clunky goggles with little game to it, but soon hopefully that will change with the deal between Oculus VR and Facebook. But how does it work?
Well what is virtual reality?
Virtual reality is using goggles or a clunky helmet and a computer to render a 3D world that one can interact with and explore.
Now we talk about how it works.
We can start with the headgear which most commonly uses two LCD screens, or not as commonly, Cathode ray tubes. Those are usually too heavy, bulky, and uncomfortable to wear. There are other methods, but they have brightness and resolution problems and are expensive. Along with these visual effects, there are usually headphones or speakers so that the user can feel fully immersed in the VR experience.
The Cave
If you don’t like the sound of this headgear tech there is a CAVE system, which stands for Cave Automatic Virtual Environment. This system sounds difficult to produce, but is actually a small space or cube room which usually has three walls and sometimes the floor and ceiling lit up and they act as monitors. However you still have to wear some weird goggles that are similar to 3D glasses.The actual walls are rear-projection screens that have a stereoscopic format and are projected in a fast alternating pattern. Along with that the goggles, they have shutters that synchronise with the alternating pattern with a tracker that tells the computer how to alternate, and usually the user has controllers to interact with the environment.
VR clothing
While all these other devices are important, some researchers feel that for the most immersive experience will be clothing. Slowly but surely there are human-machine interface devices. With bodysuits and gloves, these HMI devices provide a total experience using fiber optic cables using light of all things track movement depending on how much light actually hits the sensor. Others use a rubber material covered in a conductive in that the CPU track movement accordingly. On the more accurate hand there is a DHM, a dexterous hand master using sensors attached to the joints of the hand and some mechanical links. These are the best but are also more cumbersome.
VR is still in its early development stages but hopefully soon within the decade they will master this new immersive technological system.
