Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Virtual Reality Immersive Systems
Examples of the Virtual Reality
Immersive Simulations
In a computer-generated artificial environment
people can be immersed, and they can interact.
One has the complete sense of presence in an
immersive visualization environment, where
everything moves and sounds like the real thing.
Virtual reality techniques provide an interactive
experience in several senses at once. Interactive
fiction can offer an enjoyable reading experience.
In the immersive virtual reality system, the user
is visually and physically isolated from the real
environment and feels blocked from real life due to
the use of the visual display, HMD (head mounted
device), and such peripherals as body and head
tracking interface, 3D acoustic display, and haptic
(force and touch) feedback (Xu & Taylor, 2000).
Digital showroom provides a large 20-foot 3D
immersive holographic display with connection
on the web.
Intelligent environments and virtual reality
can be linked to the human computer interaction
domain through user interfaces. Easy to use soft-
ware for creating and publishing interactive 3D
rich media is available online. Helmets and gloves,
along with speech and gesture recognition support
older kinds of interface such as a keyboard and a
mice or a light pen. Intelligent environments with
multimodal interfaces allow controlling appli-
ances. Thus, one may control with hand gestures
without words movements of robot arms, or use
one's voice or a pointer to operate a projector or a
computer. One can interact with the use of anima-
tions providing a lifelike behavior of characters in
virtual environment. In some intelligent environ-
ments appliances may be controlled by interfaces,
for example, a life-size wooden puppet serves as
an interface, robot arms are controlled by hand
gestures, or computer functions are controlled by
voice and pointer. In an immersive virtual reality,
the user is represented in an artificial environment
by an avatar character controlled by the user with
a head-mounted display and a glove.
Virtual reality simulations can be applied in every
field of science and engineering, for research or
learning and training. For example, a pilot train-
ing program uses a model of real conditions in an
aircraft or spacecraft. People learning to fly are
completely surrounded by virtual imagery and
3D sound in an aircraft flight simulator equipped
with a pilot's chair, a headset, control panels, and a
sight of animated runway. Real actions performed
by pilots in extreme conditions are recreated for
purpose of training.
Many times simulation units take form of a
room, such as CAVE (Cruz-Neira, Sandin, De-
Fanti, Kenyon, & Hart, 1992) and also EON Reality
ICUBE™ (www.eonreality.com/products_icube.
html) immersive systems. In both cases a large
theatre is sited within a large room. Immersive
virtual reality environments projectors are directed
to three, four, five or six walls made up of rear-
projection screens in a room-sized cube, to create
and display a one-to-many visualization tool that
utilizes large projection screens, often via mirrors.
Users wear special glasses to see 3D graphics.
With the use of electromagnetic sensors visitors
can see objects apparently floating in the air and
can walk around them, getting a proper view like
in reality. CAVE was invented by Thomas A.
DeFanti and Daniel J. Sandin, and developed in
1992 at the University of Illinois, Chicago. The
first CAVE was open to the public in 1996, when
the City of Linz opened a Museum of the Future
dedicated to art and technology. According to
the CAVE creators, the name is also a reference
to the allegory of the cave in Plato's Republic
where a philosopher contemplates perception,
reality and illusion.
Digital museums in a 3D virtual environment
provide visitors with information about museum
content and context, services, and personal rec-
ommendations. The current framework of content
management system is integrated in the museum
