Knowledge Management and Specialized Information Systems - Principles of Information Systems - page 467

or running a finger across a textured surface. Touch sensations also have to be synchronized
with the sights and sounds users experience.
Forms of Virtual Reality
Aside from immersive virtual reality, which we just discussed, virtual reality can also refer to
applications that are not fully immersive, such as mouse-controlled navigation through a
three-dimensional environment on a graphics monitor, stereo viewing from the monitor via
stereo glasses, stereo projection systems, and others.
Some virtual reality applications allow views of real environments with superimposed
virtual objects. Motion trackers monitor the movements of dancers or athletes for subsequent
studies in immersive virtual reality. Telepresence systems (such as telemedicine and teler-
obotics) immerse a viewer in a real world that is captured by video cameras at a distant location
and allow for the remote manipulation of real objects via robot arms and manipulators. Many
believe that virtual reality will reshape the interface between people and information tech-
nology by offering new ways to communicate information, visualize processes, and express
ideas creatively.
Computer-generated image
technology and simulation are used
by companies to determine plant
capacity, manage bottlenecks, and
optimize production rates.
(Source: © Lester Lefkowitz/Getty
Images.)
Virtual Reality Applications
You can find thousands of applications of virtual reality, with more being developed as the
cost of hardware and software declines and people's imaginations are opened to the potential
of virtual reality. The following are a few virtual reality applications in medicine, education
and training, business, and entertainment. See Figure 11.14.
Medicine
Barbara Rothbaum, the director of the Trauma and Recovery Program at Emory University
School of Medicine and cofounder of Virtually Better, uses an immersive virtual reality system
to help in the treatment of anxiety disorders. 63 “For most of our applications, we use a head-
mounted display that's kind of like a helmet with a television screen in front of each eye and
has position trackers and sensors,” says Rothbaum. One VR program, called SnowWorld,
helps treat burn patients. 64 Using VR, the patients can navigate through icy terrain and frigid
waterfalls. VR helps because it gets a patient's mind off the pain.