So whatever happened to Virtual Reality? As with many buzzwords, it was popular for a short time and it was quickly used by any entrepreneur to try to sell his goods. Hence, the definition is very fuzzy. In the strictest sense, we will probably never experience a true and complete immersive virtual environment in our time. In the most wides of interpretations, any 3D game can be considered virtual reality. Even QuickTime can be VR, it can be beautiful, but is it really VR?
I believe any VR that’s worth its name should at least contain:
- True 3D visuals
- 3D audio
- Immersive input device(s)
True 3D visuals
You know, the 3D where you need to wear glasses or that need a special monitor. A few years ago, there were announcements by Sharp and Toshiba on their 3D monitors. Today I can’t find much information on those, certainly no reviews. Didn’t they work? Was the quality not as expected? Or maybe nobody cared?
In the meantime, the glasses are making a comeback. There seem to be regular movie releases that use those, most are aimed at kids, but some are not. I believe those use light polarisation, which keeps the glasses cheap and light. On the computer front, I did own an Asus 3D card that had shutter glasses. I was not impressed by the quality, most probably because my monitor’s slow reaction times caused ghosting (one eye sees a ghost image of the picture for the other eye). LCD screens are even worse, so I don’t really see a future for that technology.
3D audio
Pretty much any soundcard supports 5.1 sound. Many people might not set up their system correctly, but at least technically, this part is fully covered.
Immersive input device(s)
I don’t think a joypad will ever really suck you into a virtual environment. It’s better than a keyboard of course, but in how many real life situation do you control anything by using little buttons and sticks? Anything computer related excluded? Do you use a tiny stick to view things to your left and right? I don’t think so. Do you usually push buttons to open doors? Not quite.
There’s a lot of development in this area. While there used to be a lot of interest in special gloves and stuff, research nowadays tries to track motions using external hardware that you’re not supposed to notice. Using lasers or even simple webcams. The Wii is probably the biggest advance for more natural user input. It still has many buttons and sticks, but the controller enables many interesting experiments.
I also like the card based approach that is used in many augmented reality projects. Although there is a technical distinction between augmented and virtual reality, it appears it’s only that and many people just use both interchangeably.
So what do you get if you combine all of the above? A weird Frankenstein setup, that is probably the coolest toy ever. Can’t wait to try this all out once I got my large desk installed.