Virtual Reality Essay

Virtual reality development has really slowed in recent years and recent progress is not exactly recent. This is more than likely due to public disappointment, further due to the high expectations created by media sensation. I must admit though, since I was a child Virtual Reality has transformed incredibly.
Virtual Reality is a term that applies to computer simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as imaginary worlds. Virtual Reality provides virtual presence of users with the concepts of telepresence and telexistance, or a virtual artifact 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, and omnidirectional treadmills. The simulated environment can be similar to the real world in order to create a lifelike experience. It can also be described as a human desire to escape the boundaries of the ‘real world’ by embracing cyberspace. Once there we can interact with this virtual environment in a more naturalistic manner which will generate new forms of human-machine interaction (HMI). Virtual reality also acts as a problem solving device. It enables us to explore various options as a means of finding an answer to a problem. For example, an engineering company will use virtual reality to produce a prototype which is then tested and the results fed back to the design team. The advantage of this is that it enables the designers to make alterations to their design but at far less time and cost.

A scientist distinguished between the first reality, which we experience, and the second reality, which we imagine. The creators aim for VR was to make a person become unaware of their surroundings to the extent that they assume a new identity or interact in new and exciting ways. Research shows that there are many scientist put together that help make VR possible. Many people assume that virtual reality is a recent arrival on the technological scene, but in fact, it goes back much further than many of us realize.
One partner of VR was Jaron Lanier, an American computer scientist, is best known for popularizing the term virtual reality. Another was Morton Heilig (1926-1997) Morton's most famous as the Father of Virtual Reality. The Sensorama Machine was invented in 1957 and patented in 1962. It is a simulator for one to four people that provides the illusion of reality using a 3-D motion picture with smell, stereo sound, vibrations of the seat, and wind in the hair to create the illusion. Viewers were invited to watch a film which would use all of their five senses.
In 1962 Ivan Sutherland created a light pen which made it possible to sketch images on a computer. Sutherland then created “Sketchpad”. It opened a way for designers to create blueprints of automobiles, cities, and industrial products. By 1970, Sutherland then produced the head mounted display and Engelbart came into the picture and his work helped to shape the future of user interaction via, that device that accompanies a standard computer keyboard known as “the mouse”. The list of applications for VR is endless. Virtual reality may have been considered an overnight sensation but it has been re-invented under the term ‘virtual environments’ and is proving to be useful in ways which had never been previously considered. This is done to prevent any unrealistic expectations as regards this technology which keeps it in the domain of science fact and not science fiction. One of the most influential antecedents of VR is the flight simulator. Following WWII and through the 1990’s the military and industrial complex put millions of dollars into tecnol to simulate flying airplanes. It is cheaper, and safer to train pilots on the ground before sending them into the hazards of flight.
The flight simulator is just one of the many amazing inventions that have to do with virtual reality. Nowadays virtual reality is used in so many

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