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Virtual reality



 
 
Virtual reality (VR) is a technology which allows a user to interact with a computer-simulated environment, whether that environment is a simulation of the real world or an imaginary world. Most current virtual reality environments
Surroundings

Surroundings are the area around a given physical or geographical Point or place. The exact definition depends on the field. Surroundings can also be used in geography and mathematics, as well as philosophy, with the literal or metaphorically extended definition....
 are primarily visual experiences, displayed either on a computer screen or through special or stereoscopic displays
Stereoscopy

Stereoscopy, stereoscopic imaging or 3-D imaging is any technique capable of recording three-dimensional visual information or creating the stereopsis in an image....
, but some simulations include additional sensory information, such as sound through speakers or headphones
Headphones

Headphones are a pair of small loudspeakers, or less commonly a single speaker, with a way of holding them close to a user's ears and a means of connecting them to a signal source such as an audio amplifier, radio or CD player....
.






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Vr Helm
Virtual reality (VR) is a technology which allows a user to interact with a computer-simulated environment, whether that environment is a simulation of the real world or an imaginary world. Most current virtual reality environments
Surroundings

Surroundings are the area around a given physical or geographical Point or place. The exact definition depends on the field. Surroundings can also be used in geography and mathematics, as well as philosophy, with the literal or metaphorically extended definition....
 are primarily visual experiences, displayed either on a computer screen or through special or stereoscopic displays
Stereoscopy

Stereoscopy, stereoscopic imaging or 3-D imaging is any technique capable of recording three-dimensional visual information or creating the stereopsis in an image....
, but some simulations include additional sensory information, such as sound through speakers or headphones
Headphones

Headphones are a pair of small loudspeakers, or less commonly a single speaker, with a way of holding them close to a user's ears and a means of connecting them to a signal source such as an audio amplifier, radio or CD player....
. Some advanced, haptic
Haptic

Haptic technology refers to technology that interfaces to the user via the sense of touch by applying forces, vibrations, and/or motions to the user....
 systems now include tactile information, generally known as force feedback, in medical and gaming applications. Users can interact with a virtual environment or a virtual artifact
Virtual artifact

A virtual artifact is an immaterial Object that exists in the human mind or in a digital environment, for example the Internet, intranet, virtual reality, cyberspace, etc....
 (VA) either through the use of standard input devices such as a keyboard and mouse, or through multimodal
Multimodal

Multimodal may refer to:* Multimodal distribution, a statistical distribution of values with multiple peaks* Multimodal interaction, a form of man-machine interaction using multiple modes of input/output....
 devices such as a wired glove
Wired glove

A wired glove is a glove-like input device for virtual reality environments. Various sensor technologies are used to capture physical data such as bending of fingers....
, the Polhemus , and omnidirectional treadmill
Omnidirectional treadmill

An omnidirectional treadmill, or ODT, is a device that allows a person to perform locomotive motion in any direction. The ability to move in any direction is how these treadmills differ from their basic counterparts ....
. The simulated environment can be similar to the real world, for example, simulations for pilot or combat training, or it can differ significantly from reality, as in VR games. In practice, it is currently very difficult to create a high-fidelity virtual reality experience, due largely to technical limitations on processing power, image resolution
Image resolution

Image resolution describes the detail an holds. The term applies equally to digital images, film images, and other types of images. Higher resolution means more image detail....
 and communication bandwidth. However, those limitations are expected to eventually be overcome as processor, imaging and data communication technologies become more powerful and cost-effective over time.

Virtual Reality is often used to describe a wide variety of applications, commonly associated with its immersive, highly visual, 3D environments. The development of CAD software, graphics hardware acceleration, head mounted displays, database gloves and miniaturization have helped popularize the notion. In the book The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality, Michael Heim
Michael Heim

This article is not about Michael Henry Heim, UCLA Professor of Slavic Studies and Literatures.Michael R. Heim MA, PhD is an American author and educator....
 identifies seven different concepts of Virtual Reality: simulation, interaction, artificiality, immersion, telepresence, full-body immersion, and network communication. The definition still has a certain futuristic romanticism attached. People often identify VR with Head Mounted Displays and Data Suits.

Background


Terminology and concepts

The term "artificial reality
Artificial reality

Artificial reality was the term Myron W. Krueger used to describe his interactive immersive environments, based on video recognition techniques, that put a user in full, unencumbered contact with the digital world....
", coined by Myron Krueger, has been in use since the 1970s, but the origin of the term "virtual reality" can be traced back to the French playwright, poet, actor and director Antonin Artaud. In his seminal book The Theatre and Its Double (1938), Artaud described theatre as "la réalite virtuelle", a virtual reality "in which characters, objects, and images take on the phantasmagoric force of alchemy's visionary internal dramas". It has been used in The Judas Mandala, a 1982 science-fiction novel by Damien Broderick
Damien Broderick

Damien Francis Broderick is an Australian science fiction and popular science writer. His science fiction novel The Judas Mandala is sometimes credited with the first appearance of the term "virtual reality"....
, where the context of use is somewhat different from that defined above. The earliest use cited by the Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press , is a comprehensive dictionary of the English language. Two fully-bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989; as of December 2008 the dictionary's current editors have completed a quarter of the third edition....
 is in a 1987 article entitled "Virtual reality", but the article is not about VR technology. The VR developer Jaron Lanier
Jaron Lanier

Jaron Zepel Lanier is a computer scientist, composer, visual artist, and author. He was a pioneer in, and popularized the term "Virtual Reality" in the early 1980s....
 claims that he coined the term in the early 1980s; however, that is almost fifty years after it appeared in Artaud's book. The concept of virtual reality was popularized in mass media by movies such as Brainstorm
Brainstorm (1983 film)

Brainstorm is a 1983 science fiction film directed by Douglas Trumbull and starring Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood ....
 (filmed mostly in 1981) and The Lawnmower Man (plus others mentioned below). The VR research boom of the 1990s was accompanied by the non-fiction book Virtual Reality (1991) by Howard Rheingold
Howard Rheingold

Howard Rheingold is a critic and writer; his specialties are on the cultural, social and political implications of modern communication media such as the Internet, mobile telephony and virtual community ....
. The book served to demystify the subject, making it more accessible to less technical researchers and enthusiasts, with an impact similar to that which his book The Virtual Community
The Virtual Community

The Virtual Community is a 1993 book about virtual community by Howard Rheingold, a member of the early network system WELL . A second edition, with a new concluding chapter was published in 2000 by MIT Press....
 had on virtual community
Virtual community

A virtual community, e-community or online community is a Group of people that primarily interact via communication media such as newsletters, telephone, email, online social networks or instant messages rather than face to face, for social, professional, educational or other purposes....
 research lines closely related to VR. Multimedia: from Wagner to Virtual Reality, edited by Randall Packer and Ken Jordan and first published in 2001, explores the term and its history from an avant-garde perspective.

Timeline

Morton Heilig
Morton Heilig

Morton Heilig was a thought-leader in Virtual Reality . He applied his cinematographer experience with the help of his partner developed the Sensorama in 1960....
 wrote in the 1950s of an "Experience Theatre" that could encompass all the senses in an effective manner, thus drawing the viewer into the onscreen activity. He built a prototype of his vision dubbed the Sensorama
Sensorama

The Sensorama was a machine that is one of the earliest known examples of immersive, multi-sensory technology. Morton Heilig, who today would be thought of as a ?multimedia? specialist, in the 1950s saw theater as an activity that could encompass all the senses in an effective manner, thus drawing the viewer into the onscreen activity....
 in 1962, along with five short films to be displayed in it while engaging multiple senses (sight, sound, smell, and touch). Predating digital
Digital

A digital system uses discrete values, usually but not always symbolized numerically to represent information for input, processing, transmission, storage, etc....
 computing, the Sensorama was a mechanical device
Machine

A machine is any device that uses energy to perform some activity. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work....
, which reportedly still functions today. In 1968, Ivan Sutherland
Ivan Sutherland

Ivan Edward Sutherland is an United States computer scientist and Internet pioneer. He received the Turing Award in 1988 for the invention of Sketchpad, an early predecessor to the sort of graphical user interface that has become ubiquitous in personal computers....
, with the help of his student Bob Sproull
Bob Sproull

For the physicist, see Robert SproullDr. Robert F. Sproull works for Sun Microsystems where he is a Sun Fellow and Vice President at Sun Labs Massachusetts in Burlington....
, created what is widely considered to be the first virtual reality and augmented reality (AR)
Augmented reality

Augmented reality is a field of computer research which deals with the combination of real-world and computer-generated data , where computer graphics objects are blended into real footage in real time....
 head mounted display (HMD) system
System

System is a set of interacting or interdependent entities, real or abstract, forming an integrated whole.The concept of an "integrated whole" can also be stated in terms of a system embodying a set of relationships which are differentiated from relationships of the set to other elements, and from relationships between an element of the se...
. It was primitive both in terms of user interface
User interface

The user interface is the aggregate of means by which people—the User s—Interaction with the system—a particular machine, device, computer program or other complex tools....
 and realism
Realism (arts)

Realism in the visual arts and literature is the depiction of subjects as they appear in everyday life, without embellishment or interpretation....
, and the HMD to be worn by the user was so heavy it had to be suspended from the ceiling, and the graphics
Computer graphics

Computer graphics are graphics created by computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of pictorial data by a computer....
 comprising the virtual environment were simple wireframe model rooms. The formidable appearance of the device inspired its name, The Sword of Damocles. Also notable among the earlier hypermedia
Hypermedia

Hypermedia is used as a logical extension of the term hypertext in which graphics, audio, video, plain text and hyperlinks intertwine to create a generally non-linear medium of information....
 and virtual reality systems was the Aspen Movie Map
Aspen Movie Map

The Aspen Movie Map was a revolutionary hypermedia system developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology by a team working with Andrew Lippman in 1978 with funding from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency....
, which was created at MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private university research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States....
 in 1977. The program was a crude virtual simulation of Aspen, Colorado
Aspen, Colorado

The City of Aspen is a Colorado municipalities#Home_Rule_Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Pitkin County, Colorado, Colorado, United States....
 in which users could wander the streets in one of three modes: summer, winter, and polygons. The first two were based on photographs — the researchers actually photographed every possible movement through the city's street grid in both seasons — and the third was a basic 3-D model of the city. In the late 1980s the term "virtual reality" was popularized by Jaron Lanier
Jaron Lanier

Jaron Zepel Lanier is a computer scientist, composer, visual artist, and author. He was a pioneer in, and popularized the term "Virtual Reality" in the early 1980s....
, one of the modern pioneers of the field. Lanier had founded the company VPL Research (from "Visual Programming Languages") in 1985, which developed and built some of the seminal "goggles n' gloves" systems of that decade.

Future

It is difficult to predict the future of virtual reality with confidence. In the short run, the graphics displayed in the HMD will soon reach a point of near realism. The audio capabilities will move into a new realm of three dimensional sound. This refers to the addition of sound channels both above and below the individual or a Holophony approach.

Within existing technological limits, sight and sound are the two senses which best lend themselves to high quality simulation. There are however attempts being currently made to simulate smell. The purpose of current research is linked to a project aimed at treating Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in veterans by exposing them to combat simulations, complete with smells. Although it is often seen in the context of entertainment by popular culture, this illustrates the point that the future of VR is very much tied into therapeutic, training, and . Given that fact, a full sensory immersion beyond basic tactile feedback, sight, sound, and smell is unlikely to be a goal in the industry . It is worth mentioning that simulating smells, while it can be done very realistically, requires costly research and development to make each odor, and the machine itself is expensive and specialized, using capsules tailor made for it. Thus far basic, and very strong smells such as burning rubber, cordite, gasoline fumes, and so-forth have been made. Not content to serve only its customers' eyes and ears, Japan's NTT Communications, of Tokyo, has just finished testing an Internet-connected odor-delivery system to be used by retailers and restaurants to attract customers. But as new trials and applications are tried out and more data gathered, Hamada says he is sure the technology “will take communications to a new level in content richness, compared to today’s communications, which only offers images and sounds”.

In order to engage the other sense of taste, the brain must be manipulated directly. This would move virtual reality into the realm of simulated reality
Simulated reality

Simulated reality is the proposition that reality could be simulated?perhaps by computer simulation?to a degree indistinguishable from "true" reality....
 like the "head-plugs" used in The Matrix
The Matrix

The Matrix is a science fiction film-action film written and directed by Wachowski brothers and starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving....
. Although no form of this has been seriously developed at this point, Sony has taken the first step. On April 7, 2005, Sony went public with the information that they had filed for and received a patent for the idea of the non-invasive beaming of different frequencies and patterns of ultrasonic waves directly into the brain to recreate all five senses. There has been research to show that this is possible . Sony has not yet conducted any tests and says that it is still only an idea.

It has long been feared that Virtual Reality will be the last invention of humans, as once simulations become cheaper and more widespread, no one will ever want to leave their "perfect" fantasies. Satirists, however, have nodded towards humans' aversion to catheters and starvation.

Impact

There has been increasing interest in the potential social impact of new technologies, such as virtual reality (as may be seen in utopian literature, within the social sciences, and in popular culture). Mychilo S. Cline, in his book, Power, Madness, and Immortality: The Future of Virtual Reality, argues that virtual reality will lead to a number of important changes in human life and activity. He argues that:
  • Virtual reality will be integrated into daily life and activity and will be used in various human ways.
  • Techniques will be developed to influence human behavior
    Human behavior

    Human behavior is the collection of behaviors exhibited by human beings and influenced by culture, attitude s, emotions, Value s, ethics, authority, rapport, hypnosis, persuasion, coercion and/or genetics....
    , interpersonal communication
    Interpersonal communication

    Interpersonal communication is defined by communication scholars in numerous ways, usually describing participants who are dependent upon one another and have a shared history....
    , and cognition
    Cognition

    Cognition is the science term for "the process of thought."Its usage varies in different ways in accord with different disciplines: For example, in psychology and cognitive science it refers to an information processing view of an individual's psychological Functionalism s....
     (i.e., virtual genetics).
  • As we spend more and more time in virtual
    Virtual

    The term virtual is a concept applied in many fields with somewhat differing connotations, and also, differing denotations.The term has been defined in philosophy as "that which is not real" but may display the full qualities of the real....
     space, there will be a gradual “migration to virtual space,” resulting in important changes in economics, worldview, and culture.
  • The design of virtual environments may be used to extend basic human rights into virtual space, to promote human freedom and well-being, and to promote social stability as we move from one stage in socio-political development to the next.


Heritage and Archaeology

The use of VR in Heritage and Archaeology has enormous potential in museum and visitor centre applications, but its use has been tempered by the difficulty in presenting a 'quick to learn' real time experience to numerous people any given time. Many historic reconstructions tend to be in a pre-rendered format to a shared video display, thus allowing more than one person to view a computer generated world, but limiting the interaction that full-scale VR can provide. The first use of a VR presentation in a Heritage application was in 1994 when a museum visitor interpretation provided an interactive 'walk-through' of a 3D reconstruction of Dudley Castle
Dudley Castle

Dudley Castle is a ruins castle in the town of Dudley, West Midlands , England. Dudley Zoo is located in its grounds. The location, Castle Hill, is an outcrop of Wenlock Group limestone that was extensively quarried during the Industrial Revolution, and which now along with Wren's Nest is a Scheduled Monument as the best surviving remains of...
 in England as it was in 1550. This consisted of a computer controlled laserdisc based system designed by British based engineer Colin Johnson. It is a little known fact that one of the first users of Virtual Reality was Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, when she officially opened the visitor centre in June 1994. Details of the original project can be viewed here:. The system featured in a conference held by the British Museum in November 1994 and in the subsequent technical paper.. 'Imaging the Past' - Electronic Imaging and Computer Graphics in Museums and Archaeology - ISBN 0861591143.

Virtual Reality Reconstruction

Virtual Reality enables heritage sites to be recreated extremely accurately, so that the recreations can be published in various media. The original sites are often inaccessible to the public, or may even no longer exist. This technology can be used to develop virtual replicas of caves, natural environment, old towns, monuments, sculptures and archaeological elements.

The process that has used to reproduce the natural cave of Santimamiñe
Santimamiñe

Santimami?e cave, Kortezubi, Biscay, Basque Country is one of the most important archaeological sites of the Basque Country, including a nearly complete sequence from the Middle Paleolithic to the Iron Age....
 is based on the following main steps: Data collection in the area through a 3D laser scanning and photogrammetry, Data processing in cabinet, Virtual model generation, Application development, Design and an installation and setting up of the Virtual Reality system. A video sample of the results of this technology can be viewed in

Mass media

Mass media has been a great advocate and perhaps a great hindrance to its development over the years. During the research “boom” of the late 1980s into the 1990s the news media’s prognostication on the potential of VR — and potential overexposure in publishing the predictions of anyone who had one (whether or not that person had a true perspective on the technology and its limits) — built up the expectations of the technology so high as to be impossible to achieve under the technology then or any technology to date. Entertainment media reinforced these concepts with futuristic imagery many generations beyond contemporary capabilities.

Fiction books
Many science fiction
Science fiction

Science fiction is a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations based on current or future science or technology. Science fiction is found in books, art, television, films, games, theatre, and other media....
 books and movies have imagined characters being "trapped in virtual reality". One of the first modern works to use this idea was Daniel F. Galouye
Daniel F. Galouye

Daniel Francis Galouye was an United States science fiction writer. During the 1950s and 1960s, he contributed novelettes and short stories to various digest size science fiction magazines, sometimes writing under the pseudonym Louis G....
's novel Simulacron-3
Simulacron-3

The science fiction novel Simulacron-3 was first published in 1964 by Daniel F. Galouye in the United States, and is one of the first literary descriptions of virtual reality....
, which was made into a German teleplay titled Welt am Draht ("World on a Wire") in 1973 and into a movie titled The Thirteenth Floor
The Thirteenth Floor

The Thirteenth Floor is a 1999 film directed by Josef Rusnak, produced by Roland Emmerich and starring Craig Bierko, Gretchen Mol, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Dennis Haysbert....
 in 1999. Other science fiction books have promoted the idea of virtual reality as a partial, but not total, substitution for the misery of reality (in the sense that a pauper in the real world can be a prince in VR), or have touted it as a method for creating breathtaking virtual worlds in which one may escape from Earth's now toxic atmosphere. They are not aware of this, because their minds exist within a shared, idealized virtual world known as Dream Earth, where they grow up, live, and die, never knowing the world they live in is but a dream. Stanislaw Lem
Stanislaw Lem

Stanislaw Lem was a Poland science fiction, philosophy and satire writer. His books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 27 million copies....
 wrote in early 1960 a short story "dziwne skrzynie profesora Corcorana" in which he presented a scientist, who devised a completely artificial virtual reality. Amongst the beings trapped inside his created virtual world, there is also a scientist, who also devised such machines creating another level of virtual world.

The Piers Anthony
Piers Anthony

Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob is an English American author in the science fiction and fantasy genres, publishing under the name Piers Anthony....
 novel Killobyte
Killobyte

Killobyte is a 1993 novel by Piers Anthony. This book explores a virtual reality world in the context of the Internet, and although originally intended as an action-adventure story, it is more of a character study....
 follows the story of a paralyzed cop trapped in a virtual reality game by a hacker, whom he must stop to save a fellow trapped player with diabetes slowly succumbing to insulin shock. This novel toys with the idea of both the potential positive therapeutic uses, such as allowing the paralysed to experience the illusion of movement while stimulating unused muscles, as well as virtual realities' dangers.

An early short science fiction story — "The Veldt" — about an all too real "virtual reality" was included in the 1951 book The Illustrated Man
The Illustrated Man

The Illustrated Man is a 1951 in literature book of eighteen science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury that explores the nature of mankind....
, by Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury

Ray Douglas Bradbury is an United States literature, fantasy, Horror fiction, science fiction, and mystery writer.Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury is widely considered one of the greatest and most popular American writers of speculative fiction of the twentieth century....
 and may be the first fictional work to fully describe the concept.

The Otherland
Otherland

Otherland is a series of four science fiction novels written by Tad Williams. The story is set in the mid-to-late 21st century where technology has advanced somewhat from the modern day....
 series of 4 novels by Tad Williams
Tad Williams

Robert Paul "Tad" Williams is the author of several fantasy and science fiction novels, including Tailchaser's Song, the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series, the Otherland series, and The War of the Flowers....
 . Set in the 2070s, it shows a world where the Internet
Internet

The Internet is a global network of interconnected computers, enabling users to share information along multiple channels. Typically, a computer that connects to the Internet can access information from a vast array of available server and other computers by moving information from them to the computer's local memory....
 has become accessible via virtual reality and has become so popular and somewhat commonplace that, with the help of surgical implants, people can connect directly into this future VR environment. The series follows the tale of a group of people who, while investigating a mysterious illness attacking children while in VR, find themselves trapped in a virtual reality system of fantastic detail and sophistication unlike any the world has ever imagined.

Other popular fictional works that use the concept of virtual reality include William Gibson
William Gibson

William Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.William Gibson may also refer to:*William Gibson , English Catholic martyr...
's Neuromancer
Neuromancer

Neuromancer is a 1984 novel by William Gibson, notable for being the most famous early cyberpunk novel and winner of the science-fiction "triple crown"?the Nebula Award, the Philip K....
 which defined the concept of cyberspace, Neal Stephenson
Neal Stephenson

Neal Town Stephenson is an American writer, known for his speculative fiction works, which have been variously categorized science fiction, historical fiction, maximalism, cyberpunk, and postcyberpunk....
's Snow Crash
Snow Crash

Snow Crash is Neal Stephenson's third novel, published in 1992. Like many of Stephenson's other novels it references history, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, religion, computer science, politics, cryptography, and philosophy....
, in which he made extensive reference to the term "avatar" to describe one's representation in a virtual world, and Rudy Rucker
Rudy Rucker

Rudolf von Bitter Rucker is an American mathematician, computer scientist and science fiction author, and is one of the founders of the cyberpunk literary movement....
's The Hacker and the Ants
The Hacker and the Ants

The Hacker and the Ants is a work of science fiction by Rudy Rucker published in 1994 by Avon Books. It was written while Rucker was working as a programmer at Autodesk, Inc., of Sausalito, California from 1988 to 1992,...
, in which programmer Jerzy Rugby uses VR for robot design and testing.

Another use of VR is in the teenage book "The Reality Bug" by D.J MacHale, where the inhabitants of a territory can have their own perfect virtual world, causing everyone to neglect the real world. To cause everyone to spend less time there, a virus is introduced that should make it slightly less than perfect. However, it is so powerful introduces their worse nightmares, and eventually physically breaks out of the computer until it is shut down.

Alexander Besher's Rim: A Novel of Virtual Reality
Rim (novel)

Rim: A Novel of Virtual Reality, often shortened to Rim , was Alexander Besher first novel. Set in the near future where virtual reality has dominated the economy and popular culture , commercial space travel is commonplace, and orbiting space hotels surpass the complexity of even the International Space Station, it follows the...
 is similar to Otherland
Otherland

Otherland is a series of four science fiction novels written by Tad Williams. The story is set in the mid-to-late 21st century where technology has advanced somewhat from the modern day....
, however it also shows the urban decay
Urban decay

Urban decay is a process by which a city, or a part of a city, falls into a state of disrepair. It is characterized by depopulation, economic restructuring, property abandonment, high unemployment, fragmented families, political disenfranchisement, crime, and desolate and unfriendly urban landscapes....
 that obsession with VR has caused, and the devastating effects to the economy it causes after a major crash leaves millions of users in a coma and some dead.

Television
Perhaps the earliest example of virtual reality on television is a Doctor Who
Doctor Who

Doctor Who is a British Science fiction on television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a mysterious alien Time travel known as "Doctor " who travels in his space and time-ship, the TARDIS, which normally appears from the exterior to be a blue 1950s police box....
 serial "The Deadly Assassin
The Deadly Assassin

The Deadly Assassin is a list of Doctor Who serials in the United Kingdom science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from October 30 to November 20, 1976....
". This story, first broadcast in 1976, introduced a dream-like computer-generated
Computer-generated

The term computer-generated most often refers to a sound or visual that has been created in whole or in part with the aid of computer software....
 reality known as the Matrix
Matrix (Doctor Who)

The Matrix, in the long-running United Kingdom science fiction on television series Doctor Who, is a massive computer system on the planet Gallifrey that acts as the repository of the combined knowledge of the Time Lords....
 (no relation to the film — see below). The first major American television series to showcase virtual reality was Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation

Star Trek: The Next Generation is a science fiction television program created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Set in the 24th century, about 70 years after Star Trek: The Original Series, the program features a new crew and a new Starship Enterprise....
. Several episodes featured a holodeck
Holodeck

A holodeck is a simulated reality facility located on starships and starbases in the fictional universe Star Trek universe. The holodeck was first seen in the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Encounter at Farpoint"....
, a virtual reality facility that enabled its users to recreate and experience anything they wanted. One difference from current virtual reality technology, however, was that replicators
Replicator (Star Trek)

In the fictional Star Trek universe, a replicator is a machine capable of creating objects. Replicators were originally seen used to synthesize meals on demand, but in later series they took on many other uses....
, force fields, holograms, and transporters
Transporter (Star Trek)

A transporter is a fictional teleportation machine used in the Star Trek universe. Transporters convert a person or object into an energy pattern , then "beam" it to a target, where it is reconverted into matter ....
 were used to actually recreate and place objects in the holodeck, rather than illusions of physical objects, as is done today.

In Japan
Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
 and Hong Kong
Hong Kong

Hong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a territory located in Southern China in East Asia, bordering the province of Guangdong to the north and facing the South China Sea to the east, west and south....
, the first anime
Anime

is animation in Japan and considered to be "Japanese animation" in the rest of the world. Anime dates from about 1917.Anime, in addition to manga , is extremely popular in Japan and well known throughout the world....
 series to use the idea of virtual reality was Video Warrior Laserion
Video Warrior Laserion

was an anime series aired in 1984 to 1985 in Japan and Hong Kong. There were 45 episodes aired at 30 minutes each. It was the first Japanese anime series to feature the idea of virtual reality....
 (1984).

An anime series known as Serial Experiments Lain
Serial Experiments Lain

Serial Experiments Lain is an anime series directed by Ryutaro Nakamura, original character design by Yoshitoshi ABe, screenplay written by Chiaki J....
 included a virtual reality world known as "The Wired" that eventually co-existed with the real world.

Cult British BBC2 sci-fi series Red Dwarf
Red Dwarf

Red Dwarf is a United Kingdom science fiction television situation comedy Media franchise, primarily comprising eight series of a television sitcom that ran on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999 and gained a cult following....
 featured a virtual reality game entitled Better Than Life, featuring a plot where the main characters had spent many years connected to the game. This was elaborated on in the book, based on the series' episodes, of the same name. Virtual reality has also been featured in other Red Dwarf episodes including Back to Reality, where venom from the despair squid caused the characters to believe all their experiences on Red Dwarf had been part of a VR simulation. Other episodes that feature Virtual reality include Gunmen of the Apocalypse, Stoke Me a Clipper, Blue, Beyond a Joke, and Back in the Red.

Children's television show Are You Afraid Of The Dark?
Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Are You Afraid of the Dark? can refer to:* Are You Afraid of the Dark?, a television series.* Are You Afraid of the Dark? , a novel by Sidney Sheldon....
 uses the concept of virtual reality as the premise of the episode "The Tale Of The Renegade Virus" (1993).

Channel 4's Gamesmaster
GamesMaster

GamesMaster was a Great Britain television show, screened on Channel 4 from 7 January 1992 to 3 February 1998, and was the first-ever UK television show dedicated to Video game....
 (1992 – 1998) also used a VR headset in its "tips and cheats" segment.

BBC 2's Cyberzone
CyberZone

CyberZone is a popular Video Dance production located in Southern Ontario. It is a video dance company hosted by CYBERFORCE PRODUCTIONS INC, usually taking place for three to four hours at a time....
 (1993) was the first true "virtual reality" game show. It was presented by Craig Charles
Craig Charles

Craig Charles is an England actor, stand up comedian, author, poet, and radio and television presenter, best known for playing Dave Lister in the British cult-favourite sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf....
.

FOX's VR.5
VR.5

VR.5 is an United States television program. It was broadcast on the Fox Broadcasting Company network from March 10 to May 12, 1995. Of the 13 epsisodes that were produced, only 10 aired during its original run....
 (1995) starring Lori Singer
Lori Singer

Lori Singer is an United States actor and cello. She is perhaps best known for her role of Ariel Moore, the daughter of Reverend Shaw Moore in the 1984 film Footloose, which also starred Kevin Bacon....
 and David McCallum
David McCallum

David Keith McCallum, Jr. is a Scottish people actor and the son of concertmaster violinist David McCallum, Sr.. He is best known for his roles as Illya Kuryakin, a Russian-born secret agent, on the 1960s television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and Ducky Mallard on the series NCIS ....
, used what appeared to be mistakes in technology as part of the show's on-going mystery.

In 2002, Series 4 of hit New Zealand teen sci-fi TV Series, The Tribe featured the arrival of a new tribe to the city, The Technos. They tried to gain power by introducing Virtual Reality to the city. The tribes would battle each other in the Virtual World in a "game" designed by the leader of The Techno's, Ram. However, the effects of VR on the people turned nasty when they started to fight in the real world as well, after too much use made them unable to tell the difference between what was real and what was virtual.

In 2005, Brazilian's Globo TV features a show where VR helmets are used by the attending audience in a space simulation called Conquista de Titã
Conquista de Titã

Conquista de Tit? is a virtual reality multiplayer game that is part of a television show in Brazil ....
, broadcasted for more than 20 million viewers weekly.

In the anime version of Yu-Gi-Oh!
Yu-Gi-Oh!

is a Japanese manga created by Kazuki Takahashi, which has spawned a franchise including multiple anime series, a trading card game, and numerous video games....
, one three-part episode sees the heroes entering a virtual world based on the game Duel Monsters, where the players must use their cards to work their way through a series of story-based challenges, including simulated monsters. Later, another anime-only arc forces the heroes to enter another virtual world, similar in concept but with a different set of rules. In both arcs, the bodies of the humans entering the virtual world are confined to special pods for the duration of their stay there.

The Popular .hack
.hack

.hack is a Japanese multimedia franchise that encompass two projects; Project .hack and .hack Conglomerate. Both projects were primarily created/developed by CyberConnect2, and published by Bandai....
 multimedia franchise is based on a virtual reality MMORPG
MMORPG

A massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of computer role-playing games in which a large number of player interact with one another in a virtual world....
 ironically dubbed "The World"

The French animated series Code Lyoko
Code Lyoko

Code Lyoko is a France animated television series featuring both conventional animation and computer-generated imagery. It premiered on September 3, 2003 on the France 3 network, and was produced by MoonScoop Group#Antefilms Production during the first season, MoonScoop Group during the second and third season, and by Taffy Entertainment...
 is based around the virtual world of Lyoko
Lyoko

Lyoko is a fictional virtual world in the France animated television series Code Lyoko....
 and the Internet
Internet

The Internet is a global network of interconnected computers, enabling users to share information along multiple channels. Typically, a computer that connects to the Internet can access information from a vast array of available server and other computers by moving information from them to the computer's local memory....
, the virtual world is accessed by large scanners which use an atomic process which breaks down the atoms of the person inside, digitalizes them and recreates an incarnation on Lyoko
Lyoko

Lyoko is a fictional virtual world in the France animated television series Code Lyoko....
.

Motion pictures
Steven Lisberger's 1982 movie TRON was the first mainstream Hollywood picture to explore the idea. One year later
1983 in film

Events*February 11 - The Rolling Stones concert film Let's Spend the Night Together opens in New York...
, it would be more fully expanded in the Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood

Natalie Wood was an American actress.Following her film debut at the age of four, Wood became a successful child actor in such films as the Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street ....
 film Brainstorm
Brainstorm (1983 film)

Brainstorm is a 1983 science fiction film directed by Douglas Trumbull and starring Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood ....
. Probably the most famous film to popularize the subject was more recently done by the Wachowski brothers in 1999's The Matrix
The Matrix

The Matrix is a science fiction film-action film written and directed by Wachowski brothers and starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving....
. The Matrix
The Matrix

The Matrix is a science fiction film-action film written and directed by Wachowski brothers and starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving....
 was significant in that it presented virtual reality and reality as often overlapping, and sometimes indistinguishable. Total Recall
Total Recall

Total Recall is a United States science fiction film. The film features Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone, based on the Philip K. Dick story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"....
 and David Cronenberg
David Cronenberg

David Paul Cronenberg, Order of Canada, Royal Society of Canada is a Canada film director, screenwriter, and occasional actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror or venereal horror genre....
's film EXistenZ
EXistenZ

eXistenZ is a 1999 psychological thriller/science fiction film by Canada director David Cronenberg. It stars Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law....
 dealt with the danger of confusion between reality and virtual reality in computer games. Cyberspace became something that most movies completely misunderstood, as seen in The Lawnmower Man. Also, the British comedy Red Dwarf used in several episodes the idea that life (or at least the life seen on the show) is a virtual reality game. This idea was also used in Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over
Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over

Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over is a 2003 action adventure family film directed by Robert Rodriguez, and is the third and last film in the Spy Kids Series....
. Another movie that has a bizarre theme is Brainscan
Brainscan

Brainscan is a 1994 horror film starring Edward Furlong, Frank Langella, Amy Hargreaves, Jamie Marsh and T. Ryder Smith. Music was composed by movie composer George S....
, where the point of the game is to be a virtual killer. A more artistic and philosophical perspective on the subject can be seen in Avalon
Avalon (2001 film)

is a Japanese/Poland science fiction movie by Japanese filmmaker Mamoru Oshii. It was released in 2001 in film. The name of the film originates from the island Avalon in the legend of King Arthur....
. One of the non-Sci Fi movies that uses VR as a story driver is 1994's Disclosure
Disclosure

Disclosure means the giving out of information, either voluntarily or to be in compliance with legal regulations or workplace rules....
, starring Michael Douglas
Michael Douglas

Michael Kirk Douglas is an United States actor and film producer, primarily in movies and television. Douglas's first television exposure was that of Karl Malden's young college-educated partner, Insp....
 and based on the Michael Crichton book
Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment, or other material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side....
 of the same name. A VR headset is used as a navigating device for a prototype computer filing system. There is also a film from 1995 called "Virtuosity
Virtuosity

Virtuosity is a 1995 in film Cinema of the United States science fiction film directed by Brett Leonard. The movie tells the story of a virtual villain's successful attempt to escape into the "real world"....
" with Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington

Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. is an United States actor and film director. He has garnered much critical acclaim for his work in film since the 1990s, including for his portrayals of real-life figures, such as Steve Biko, Malcolm X, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Melvin B....
 and Russell Crowe
Russell Crowe

Russell Ira Crowe is a New Zealand-born Australian actor and musician. His acting career began in the early 1990s with roles in Australian TV series such as Police Rescue and films such as Romper Stomper....
 that dealt with the creation of a serial killer, used to train law enforcement personnel, that escapes his virtual reality into the real world. Written by William Gibson himself, Johnny Mnemonic uses extensive VR, depicting Keanu Reeves playing a "cyber-courier" (Johnny Mnemonic) who smuggles data in his brain.

Music videos
The lengthy video for hard rock
Hard rock

Hard rock is a sub-genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock and psychedelic rock and is considerably harder than conventional rock music....
 band Aerosmith
Aerosmith

Aerosmith is an United States hard rock band, sometimes referred to as "The Bad Boys from Boston, Massachusetts" and "America's Greatest Rock and Roll Band"....
's 1993 single "Amazing
Amazing (Aerosmith song)

"Amazing" is a song performed by United States hard rock band Aerosmith. It was written by lead singer Steven Tyler and longtime band friend and collaborator Richie Supa ....
" depicted virtual reality, going so far as to show two young people participating in virtual reality simultaneously from their separate personal computer
Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose original sales price, size, and capabilities make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end user, with no intervening computer operator....
s (while not knowing the other was also participating in it) in which the two engage in a steamy makeout session, sky-dive, and embark on a motorcycle journey together.

Games
In 1991, the company (originally W Industries, later renamed) Virtuality licenced the Amiga 3000
Amiga 3000

The A3000, also known as the Commodore International Amiga 3000, was a much more serious proposition to build a professional multimedia computer than the previous A2000 effort....
 for use in their VR machines and released a VR gaming system called the 1000CS. This was a stand-up immersive HMD platform with a tracked 3D joystick. The system featured several VR games including Dactyl Nightmare (shoot-em-up), Legend Quest (adventure and fantasy), Hero (VR puzzle), Grid Busters (shoot-em-up). Virtual Reality I Glasses Personal Display System is a visor and headphones headset that is compatible with any video input including 3D broadcasting, and usable with most game systems (Nintendo
Nintendo

is a global company located in Kyoto, Japan founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
, PlayStation
PlayStation

The PlayStation is a 32-bit history of video game consoles video game console released by Sony Computer Entertainment in December .The PlayStation was the first of the ubiquitous PlayStation ....
, etc.). Virtual Reality World 3D Color Ninja game comes with headset visor and ankle and wrist straps that sense the player's punches and kicks. Virtual Reality Wireless TV Tennis Game comes with a toy tennis racket that senses the player's swing, while Wireless TV Virtual Reality Boxing includes boxing gloves that the player wears and jabs with. Nintendo's Virtual Boy
Virtual Boy

Nintendo's was the first handheld game console capable of displaying "true 3D computer graphics graphics" out of the box. Most video games are forced to use Depth perception#Monocular cues to achieve the illusion of three dimensions on a two-dimensional screen, but the Virtual Boy was able to create a more accurate illusion of depth through th...
 was sold for only one year, 1995. Bob Ladrach brought Virtual Knight into the major theme park arcades in 1994. Aura Interactor Virtual Reality Game Wear is a chest and back harness through which the player can feel punches, explosions, kicks, uppercuts, slam-dunks, crashes, and bodyblows. It works with Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo.

In the Mage: The Ascension
Mage: The Ascension

Mage: The Ascension is a Role-playing game based in the old World of Darkness, and was published by White Wolf, Inc.. The characters portrayed in the game are referred to as mages, and are capable of feats of magic....
 role-playing game
Role-playing game

A role-playing game is a game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a role-playing game system of rules and guidelines....
, the mage tradition of the Virtual Adepts is presented as the real creators of VR. The Adepts' ultimate objective is to move into virtual reality, scrapping their physical bodies in favour of improved virtual ones. Also, the .hack
.hack

.hack is a Japanese multimedia franchise that encompass two projects; Project .hack and .hack Conglomerate. Both projects were primarily created/developed by CyberConnect2, and published by Bandai....
 series centers on a virtual reality video game. This shows the potentially dangerous side of virtual reality, demonstrating the adverse effects on human health and possible viruses, including a comatose state that some players assume. Metal Gear Solid
Metal Gear Solid

is a stealth game video game directed and written by Hideo Kojima. The game was video game developer by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan and first video game publisher by Konami in 1998 in video gaming for the PlayStation video game console....
 bases heavily on VR usage, either as a part of the plot, or simply to guide the players through training sessions. In Kingdom Hearts II
Kingdom Hearts II

is an action role-playing game developed by Square Enix and published by Disney Interactive Studios and Square Enix in 2005 for the Sony Computer Entertainment PlayStation 2 video game console....
, the character Roxas
Organization XIII

File:Org XIII.jpg is a fictional group of characters featured in Square Enix and Buena Vista Games' Kingdom Hearts video game series. Kingdom Hearts is a Fictional crossover of various The Walt Disney Company settings based in a Parallel universe made specifically for the series....
 lives in a virtual Twilight Town until he merges with Sora. In System Shock
System Shock

System Shock is an action role-playing game developed by Looking Glass Studios and published by Origin Systems. Released in 1994 in video gaming, the game is set aboard the fictional Citadel Station in a cyberpunk vision of 2072....
, the player has implants making him able to enter into a kind of cyberspace. Its sequel, System Shock 2
System Shock 2

System Shock 2 is an action role-playing game video game, designed by Ken Levine for the personal computer . The title is a sequel to the 1994 PC game System Shock, and was co-developed by Irrational Games and Looking Glass Studios....
 also features some minor levels of VR. In Black and White users could download a patch to use the P5 glove to control the game.

Attractions
The developer of theme park style attractions using Virtual Reality technology was a major part of the development of the hardware - moving beyond simulation towards an immersive entertainment experience. Of all these developments, the Walt Disney 'DisneyQuest
DisneyQuest

DisneyQuest is an "indoor interactive theme park" located in Downtown Disney at the Walt Disney World Resort. DisneyQuest is housed in a five-story, windowless building; guests enter the first-floor lobby and are brought via elevator to the third floor atrium as the start of their visit....
' venue is the major conceptual application - still operational in 2007. Making Virtual Reality attractions mobile has also been on the forefront of their consumer appeal. As the technology improves and becomes more mainstream, various business and corporate events employ Virtual Reality providers to attract business and entertain their employees and guests.

Fine Art
David Em
David Em

David Em is an American computer artist....
 was the first fine artist to create navigable virtual worlds in the 1970s. His early work was done on mainframes at III
III

III is the Roman numerals for three, but may also refer to:* III, official artist name for the Inti Creates sound team* III , an album by the band Download...
, JPL and Caltech. Jeffrey Shaw explored the potential of VR in fine arts with early works like Legible City (1989), Virtual Museum (1991), Golden Calf(1994). Canadian artist Char Davies
Char Davies

Char Davies is an artist who creates artworks using the technologies of immersive virtual reality....
 created immersive VR art pieces Osmose (1995) and Ephémère (1998). Maurice Benayoun
Maurice Benayoun

Maurice Benayoun is a new-media artist based in Paris who has won numerous awards for his work. His work employs various media, including video, immersive virtual reality, the Web, wireless technology, performance, large-scale art installations and interactive exhibitions....
's work introduced metaphorical, philosophical or political content, combining VR, network, generation and intelligent agents, in works like Is God Flat (1994), The Tunnel under the Atlantic
The Tunnel under the Atlantic

The Tunnel under the Atlantic is an interactive art installation by Maurice Benayoun. The visitors where invited to dig, inside memory, a virtual tunnel between Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Museum of contemporary Art in Montreal in 1995....
 (1995), World Skin (1997). Other pioneering artists working in VR have include Luc Courchesne
Luc Courchesne

Luc Courchesne is a Canadian artist who works in the field of interactive art. Since the early eighties he has spent his time researching interactivity, and campaigning for the inclusion of multimedia exhibits in museums....
, Rita Addison, Knowbotic Research
Knowbotic Research

Knowbotic Research is a Germany-Switzerland electronic art group, established in 1991. Its members are Yvonne Wilhelm, Christian H?bler and Alexander Tuchacek....
, Rebecca Allen
Rebecca Allen

Rebecca Allen is an international visionary artist inspired by a variety of media to create work from 3D computer graphics computer graphics, animation, music videos, video games, performance works, artificial life systems, multisensory interfaces, interactive installations, virtual and mixed reality....
, Perry Hoberman
Perry Hoberman

BiographyPerry Hoberman , is an installation artist who has worked extensively with machines and media. His career has included stints with Laurie Anderson and the USC Interactive Media Division....
, Jacki Morie, and Brenda Laurel
Brenda Laurel

Brenda Laurel is a pioneering writer, researcher, designer and entrepreneur in the fields of human-computer interaction, interactive narrative and cultural aspects of technology ....
.

Marketing
A side effect of the chic image that has been cultivated for virtual reality in the media is that advertising and merchandise have been associated with VR over the years to take advantage of the buzz. This is often seen in product tie-ins with cross-media properties, especially gaming licenses, with varying degrees of success. The NES
Nintendo Entertainment System

The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe and Australia in . In most of Asia, including Japan , the Philippines, China, Vietnam and Singapore, it was released as the ....
 Power Glove
Power Glove

The Power Glove is a List of Nintendo Entertainment System accessories for the Nintendo Entertainment System designed by the team of Grant Goddard Abrams/Gentile Entertainment, made by Mattel in the United States and PAX in Japan....
 by Mattel from the 1980s was an early example as well as the U-Force
U-Force

The U-Force was a game controller made by Br?derbund for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It employed a pair of perpendicular infrared sensor panels to translate the user's hand movements into controller signals....
 and later, the Sega Activator. Marketing ties between VR and video games are to be expected, given that much of the progress in 3D computer graphics and virtual environment development (traditional hallmarks of VR) has been driven by the gaming industry over the last decade. TV commercials featuring VR have also been made for other products, however, such as Nike's "Virtual Andre" in 1997, featuring a teenager playing tennis using a goggle and gloves system against a computer generated Andre Agassi.

Health care education
While its use is still not widespread, virtual reality is finding its way into the training of health care professionals. Use ranges from anatomy
Anatomy

Anatomy is a branch of biology that is the consideration of the body plan. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy and plant anatomy ....
 instruction to surgery simulation
Virtual surgery

Virtual surgery refers to a virtual reality simulation of surgical procedures. These simulations are used to practice often dangerous surgical procedures without the need for an actual patient....
 . Annual conferences are held to examine the latest research in utilizing virtual reality in the medical fields.

Therapeutic uses
The primary use of VR in a therapeutic role is its application to various forms of exposure therapy, ranging from phobia
Phobia

A phobia , or morbid fear is an irrational, intense, persistent fear of certain situations, activities, things, or people. The main symptom of this Disorder is the excessive, unreasonable desire to avoid the feared subject....
 treatments, to newer approaches to treating PTSD
Post-traumatic stress disorder

Posttraumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to one or more traumatic events that threatened or caused grave physical harm....
. A very basic VR simulation with simple sight and sound models has been shown to be invaluable in phobia treatment (notable examples would be various zoophobia
Zoophobia

Zoophobia or animal phobia may have one of two closely related meanings: a generic term for the class of specific phobias to particular animals, or an irrational fear or even simply dislike of any non-human animals....
s, and acrophobia
Acrophobia

Acrophobia is an Extremism or irrational fear of heights. It belongs to a category of specific phobias, called space and motion discomfort that share both similar etiology and options for treatment....
) as a step between basic exposure therapy such as the use of simulacra and true exposure. A much more recent application is being piloted by the U.S. Navy to use a much more complex simulation to immerse veterans (specifically of Iraq) suffering from PTSD in simulations of urban combat settings. While this sounds counterintuitive, talk therapy has limited benefits for people with PTSD, which is now thought by many to be a result of changes either to the limbic system
Limbic system

The limbic system is a set of brain structures including the hippocampus, amygdala, anterior thalamic nuclei, and limbic cortex, which support a variety of functions including emotion, behavior, long term memory, and olfactory....
 in particular, or a systemic change in stress response. Much as in phobia treatment, exposure to the subject of the trauma or fear seems to lead to desensitization
Desensitization

Desensitization can refer to:* Desensitization * Desensitization * Desensitization ...
, and a significant reduction in symptoms. Some information on this can be found at this as well as this .

Another research field for the use of Virtual Reality is Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and Occupational Therapy. Virtual Reality is being tested in upper and lower limb motor rehabilitation after stroke and spinal cord injuries, and also for cerebral palsy and other disabilities. Researchers use haptic devices and rehabilitation robots with virtual reality games in order to improve motivation during exercises. Examples of this robotic applications are for upper limbs, Armeo form Hocoma, Gentle from Reading University, or Manus from MIT. An example of haptic device for upper limbs rehabilitation is Curictus. Examples for lower limb rehabilitation robot and haptic devices used with virtual reality sistems are Lokomat (from Hocoma Company) and Haptic Walker from Reading University.

Implementation

To develop a real time virtual environment, a computer graphics library can be used as embedded resource coupled with a common programming language
Programming language

A programming language is a machine-readable artificial language designed to express computations that can be performed by a machine, particularly a computer....
, such as C++
C++

C++ is a general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as a middle-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level programming language and low-level programming language language features....
, Perl
Perl

In computer programming, Perl is a high-level programming language, List of programming languages by category, Interpreter , dynamic programming language....
, Java
Java (programming language)

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java ....
 or Python
Python (programming language)

Python is a general-purpose high-level programming language. Its design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python's core syntax and semantics are Minimalism , while the standard library is large and comprehensive....
. Some of the most popular computer graphics library
Library (computer science)

In computer science, a library is a collection of subroutines or Class used to develop software. Libraries contain code and data that provide services to independent programs....
/API/language
Programming language

A programming language is a machine-readable artificial language designed to express computations that can be performed by a machine, particularly a computer....
 are OpenGL
OpenGL

OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language cross-platform Application programming interface for writing applications that produce 2D computer graphics and 3D computer graphics....
, Direct3D
Direct3D

Direct3D is part of Microsoft's DirectX application programming interface. Direct3D is only available for Microsoft's various Microsoft Windows operating systems and is the base for the graphics API on the Xbox and Xbox 360 console systems....
, Java3D and VRML
VRML

VRML is a standard file format for representing 3-D computer graphics interactive vector graphics, designed particularly with the World Wide Web in mind....
, and their use will be directly influenced by the system demands in terms of performance, program purpose, and hardware platform. The use of multithreading (e.g. Posix
POSIX

POSIX or "Portable Operating System Interface" is the collective name of a family of related standardizations specified by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers to define the application programming interface , along with shell and utilities interfaces for software compatible with variants of the Unix operating system, altho...
) can also accelerate 3D performance and enable cluster computing
Cluster Computing

Cluster Computing: the Journal of Networks, Software Tools and Applications is a journal for parallel processing, distributed computing systems, and computer communication networks....
 with multi-user
Multi-user

Multi-user is a term that defines an operating system or application software that allows concurrent access by multiple User s of a computer. Time-sharing systems are multi-user systems....
 interactivity.

Manufacturing

Virtual reality can serve to new product design
Product design

Product design can be defined as the idea generation, concept development, Test method and manufacturing or implementation of a physical object or service....
, helping as an ancillary tool for engineering in manufacturing processes, new product prototype
Prototype

A prototype is an original type, form, or instance of something serving as a typical example, basis, or standard for other things of the same category....
 and simulation
Simulation

Simulation is the imitation of some real thing, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviors of a selected physical or abstract system....
. Among other examples, we may also quote Electronic Design Automation
Electronic design automation

Electronic Design Automation is the category of tools for designing and producing electronic systems ranging from printed circuit boards to integrated circuits....
, CAD, Finite Element Analysis, and Computer Aided Manufacturing. The use of Stereolithography
Stereolithography

Stereolithography is a common rapid manufacturing and rapid prototyping technology for producing parts with high accuracy and good surface finish....
 and 3D printing
3D printing

3D printing is a unique form of printing that is related to traditional rapid prototyping technology. A three dimensional object is created by layering and connecting successive cross sections of material....
 shows how computer graphics modeling can be applied to create physical parts of real objects used in naval, aerospace
Aerospace

Aerospace comprises the atmosphere of Earth and surrounding outer space. Typically the term is used to refer to the industry that researches, designs, manufactures, operates, and maintains vehicles moving through Aircraft and Space exploration....
 and automotive industry. Beyond modeling assembly parts, 3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics

3D computer graphics are graphics that use a Cartesian coordinate system#Three-dimensional coordinate system representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images....
 techniques are currently used in the research and development of medical devices for innovative therapies, treatments, patient monitoring, and early diagnosis
Diagnosis

Diagnosis is the identification of the nature of anything, either by process of elimination or other analytical methods. Diagnosis is used in many different disciplines, with slightly different implementations on the application of logic and experience to determine the cause and effect relationships....
 of complex diseases.

Challenges

Virtual reality has been heavily criticized for being an inefficient method for navigating non-geographical information. At present, the idea of ubiquitous computing
Ubiquitous computing

Ubiquitous computing is a post-desktop model of human-computer interaction in which information processing has been thoroughly integrated into everyday objects and activities....
 is very popular in user interface
User interface

The user interface is the aggregate of means by which people—the User s—Interaction with the system—a particular machine, device, computer program or other complex tools....
 design, and this may be seen as a reaction against VR and its problems. In reality, these two kinds of interfaces have totally different goals and are complementary. The goal of ubiquitous computing is to bring the computer
Computer

A computer is a machine that manipulates Data according to a list of Code .The first devices that resemble modern computers date to the mid-20th century , although the computer concept and various machines similar to computers existed earlier....
 into the user's world, rather than force the user to go inside the computer. The current trend in VR is actually to merge the two user interfaces to create a fully immersive and integrated experience. See simulated reality
Simulated reality

Simulated reality is the proposition that reality could be simulated?perhaps by computer simulation?to a degree indistinguishable from "true" reality....
 for a discussion of what might have to be considered if a flawless virtual reality technology was possible. Another obstacle is the headaches due to eye strain, caused by VR headsets. RSI
Repetitive strain injury

Repetitive strain injury , also known as Cumulative Trauma Disorder , occupational overuse syndrome, non-specific arm pain or work related upper limb disorder , is the most recent manifestation of illness concepts that link use of the arm to injury or disease....
 can also result from repeated use of the handset gloves.

Pioneers and notables



  • Maurice Benayoun
    Maurice Benayoun

    Maurice Benayoun is a new-media artist based in Paris who has won numerous awards for his work. His work employs various media, including video, immersive virtual reality, the Web, wireless technology, performance, large-scale art installations and interactive exhibitions....
  • Mark Bolas
    Mark Bolas

    Mark Bolas is a researcher exploring perception, agency, and intelligence. He is an Associate Professor of Interactive Media in the USC Interactive Media Division, USC School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, Director of their Interactive Narrative and Immersive Technologies Lab, and Chairman of Fakespace Labs in M...
  • Fred Brooks
    Fred Brooks

    Frederick Phillips Brooks, Jr. is a software engineer and computer scientist, best-known for managing the development of OS/360, then later writing candidly about the process in his seminal book The Mythical Man-Month....
  • Luc Courchesne
    Luc Courchesne

    Luc Courchesne is a Canadian artist who works in the field of interactive art. Since the early eighties he has spent his time researching interactivity, and campaigning for the inclusion of multimedia exhibits in museums....
  • James H. Clark
    James H. Clark

    Dr. James H. Clark is a prolific entrepreneur and former computer scientist. He founded several notable Silicon Valley technology companies, including Silicon Graphics, Inc., Netscape Communications Corporation, myCFO and Healtheon....
  • Doug Church
    Doug Church

    'Doug Church' is an United States game designer and producer. He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the late 1980s, but left and went to work with Looking Glass Studios, when they were making primarily MS-DOS-based first-person adventure/shooter/roleplaying games, including Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, Ultima Under...
  • Char Davies
    Char Davies

    Char Davies is an artist who creates artworks using the technologies of immersive virtual reality....
  • Tom DeFanti
    Thomas A. DeFanti

    Tom DeFanti is an American computer graphics researcher and Director, EVL, and Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago....
  • David Em
    David Em

    David Em is an American computer artist....
  • Scott Fisher
    Scott Fisher (technologist)

    Scott Fisher is Professor and Chair of the Interactive Media Division in the USC School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, and a Fellow of the Annenberg Center for Communication there....
  • Thomas A. Furness III
  • William Gibson
    William Gibson

    William Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.William Gibson may also refer to:*William Gibson , English Catholic martyr...
  • Morton Heilig
    Morton Heilig

    Morton Heilig was a thought-leader in Virtual Reality . He applied his cinematographer experience with the help of his partner developed the Sensorama in 1960....
  • Myron Krueger
  • Knowbotic Research
    Knowbotic Research

    Knowbotic Research is a Germany-Switzerland electronic art group, established in 1991. Its members are Yvonne Wilhelm, Christian H?bler and Alexander Tuchacek....
  • Jaron Lanier
    Jaron Lanier

    Jaron Zepel Lanier is a computer scientist, composer, visual artist, and author. He was a pioneer in, and popularized the term "Virtual Reality" in the early 1980s....
  • Brenda Laurel
    Brenda Laurel

    Brenda Laurel is a pioneering writer, researcher, designer and entrepreneur in the fields of human-computer interaction, interactive narrative and cultural aspects of technology ....
  • Randy Pausch
    Randy Pausch

    Randolph Frederick Pausch was an American professor of computer science and human-computer interaction and design at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania....
  • Mark Pesce
    Mark Pesce

    Mark Pesce, one of the early pioneers in Virtual Reality is a writer, researcher and teacher. The co-inventor of VRML, he is the author of five books and numerous papers on the future of technology....
  • Warren Robinett
    Warren Robinett

    Warren Robinett is a designer of interactive computer graphics software, notable as the developer of the Atari 2600's Adventure — the first graphical adventure video game — and as a founder of The Learning Company, where he designed Rocky's Boots....
  • Dan Sandin
    Daniel J. Sandin

    Daniel J. Sandin is a video artist and computer graphics artist/researcher. He is a Professor Emeritus of the School of Art & Design, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Co-director of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago....
  • Susumu Tachi
    Susumu Tachi

    Susumu Tachi is currently a professor at the Department of Information Physics and Computing of the University of Tokyo.Dr. Tachi received the B.E., M.S., and Ph.D....
  • Ivan Sutherland
    Ivan Sutherland

    Ivan Edward Sutherland is an United States computer scientist and Internet pioneer. He received the Turing Award in 1988 for the invention of Sketchpad, an early predecessor to the sort of graphical user interface that has become ubiquitous in personal computers....
  • Michael Naimark
    Michael Naimark

    Michael Naimark is a media artist and researcher who often explores ?place representation.?...


  • See also

    • 3D Solar Display
      3d Solar

      3D Solar is a UK startup company, setup and owned by Patrick Levy Rosenthal, which develops 3D-imaging computer screens. The company was the first to create a prototypein which the projection of an image, a ball, could be seen 13 inches away from the screen and yet the user was able to hit the ball directly with their hand, without the need f...
    • 3DMLW
      3DMLW

      3DMLW is an XML standard file format for representing 3D computer graphics and 2-dimensional interactive web content on the World Wide Web. 3DMLW engine is open-source licensed under GPL....
    • 3DUI
      3DUI

      3D User Interaction or 3D User Interfaces refers to the human interacting with a computer with an aspect of three-dimensional space. With its roots in Virtual Reality, 3DUI is now broadly considered to refer to many different domains along the Virtuality Continuum or a general term for interaction in Reality-Based Interfaces....
    • Active Worlds
      Active Worlds

      Active Worlds is a 3D computer graphics virtual reality platform. The "Active Worlds Browser" runs on Microsoft Windows. Users assign themselves a unique name, log into the Active Worlds virtual world universe, and explore 3D virtual worlds and environments that other users have built....
    • Artificial reality
      Artificial reality

      Artificial reality was the term Myron W. Krueger used to describe his interactive immersive environments, based on video recognition techniques, that put a user in full, unencumbered contact with the digital world....
    • Augmented reality
      Augmented reality

      Augmented reality is a field of computer research which deals with the combination of real-world and computer-generated data , where computer graphics objects are blended into real footage in real time....
    • Augmented virtuality
      Augmented virtuality

      Augmented virtuality refers to the merging of real world objects into virtual worlds.As an intermediate case in the Virtuality Continuum, it refers to predominantly virtual spaces, where physical elements, e.g....
    • CAVE - Cave Automatic Virtual Environment
      Cave Automatic Virtual Environment

      A Cave Automatic Virtual Environment is an immersive virtual reality environment where digital projector are directed to three, four, five or six of the walls of a room-sized cube....
    • Computer graphics
      Computer graphics

      Computer graphics are graphics created by computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of pictorial data by a computer....
    • Computer representation of surfaces
      Computer representation of surfaces

      In technical applications of 3D computer graphics such as computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing, surfaces are one way of representing objects....
    • Consensus reality
      Consensus reality

      Consensus reality is an approach to answering the question 'What is reality?', a profound philosophy question, with answers dating back millennia; it is almost invariably used to refer to human consensus reality, though there have been mentions of feline and canine consensus reality....
    • Cyberspace
      Cyberspace

      Cyberspace — from the Greek language — is the global domain of electro-magnetics accessed through electronic technology and exploited through the modulation of electromagnetic energy to achieve a wide range of communication and control system capabilities....
    • Dotsoul
      Dotsoul

      Dotsoul is an immersive 3D Virtual Reality MMORPG based on the Active Worlds application. Created in 2006 by Joseph Bergeron and Laura Herrmann, it has been spoken of as the Greenwich Village/Comedy Central of the Internet....
    • First-person shooter
      First-person shooter

      File:Freedoom aaa.pngFirst-person shooter is a Video game genres, featuring a First person , with which the player views the action as if through the eyes of the protagonist and in which the primary element is combat based around shooting....
    • Geowall
      Geowall

      A GeoWall is a low cost interactive 3D Stereoscopy projection system. It consists of a computer with a dual-output graphics card, two projectors, a rack to hold them, polarizing filters, silver screen, a pair of cheap polarized glasses for each user, and one or two monitors....
    • Geoweb
      Geoweb

      The Geospatial Web or Geoweb is a relatively new term that implies the merging of geographical information with the abstract information that currently dominates the Internet....
  • Head Mounted Display
  • Hyperreality
    Hyperreality

    In semiotics and postmodern philosophy, the term hyperreality characterizes the inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy, especially in technologically advanced postmodern cultures....
  • Interactive Art
    Interactive art

    Interactive art is a form of installation-based art that involves the spectator in some way. Some installations achieve this by letting the observer walk in, on, and around them....
  • Lucid Dream
  • Meatspace
    Meatspace

    Meatspace is a word referring to real life or the real world, and conceived as the opposite of cyberspace or virtual reality.The term has appeared in in the Financial Times, in science fiction literature, specifically the cyberpunk genre....
  • Metaverse
    Metaverse

    The Metaverse is a virtual world, described in Neal Stephenson's 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash, where humans, as Avatar s, interact with each other and software agents, in a 3D computer graphics space that uses the metaphor of the real world....
  • Methods of virtual reality
    Methods of virtual reality

    There are a number of methods by which virtual reality can be done....
  • Mixed reality
    Mixed reality

    Mixed reality refers to the merging of real and virtual worlds to produce new environments and visualisations where physical and digital objects co-exist and interact in real time....
  • Narrative environment
    Narrative environment

    A narrative environment is a space, whether physical or virtual, in which stories can unfold . A virtual narrative environment might be the narrative framework in which game play can proceed....
  • Omnidirectional treadmill
    Omnidirectional treadmill

    An omnidirectional treadmill, or ODT, is a device that allows a person to perform locomotive motion in any direction. The ability to move in any direction is how these treadmills differ from their basic counterparts ....
  • Parallel rendering
    Parallel rendering

    Parallel rendering is a method used to improve the performance of computer graphics creation software. The rendering of graphics requires massive computational resources for complex objects like medical visualization, iso-surface generation, and some CAD applications....
  • QuickTime VR
    QuickTime VR

    QuickTime VR is a type of image file format supported by Apple Computer's QuickTime. It allows the creation and viewing of photographically captured panoramas and the exploration of objects through images taken at multiple viewing angles....
  • Second Life
    Second Life

    Second Life is a virtual world developed by Linden Lab that launched on June 23, 2003 and is accessible via the Internet. A free Client called the Second Life Viewer enables its users, called Resident , to interact with each other through avatar ....
  • Simulated reality
    Simulated reality

    Simulated reality is the proposition that reality could be simulated?perhaps by computer simulation?to a degree indistinguishable from "true" reality....
  • Spore (2008 video game)
    Spore (2008 video game)

    Spore is a genre massive single-player online metaverse video game developed by Maxis and game design by Will Wright . It allows a player to control the development of a species from its beginnings as a unicellular organism, through development as an intelligent and Social animal creature, to interstellar exploration as a spaceflight cult...
  • Virtools
    Virtools

    Virtools is a software developer and vendor, created in 1993 and owned by Dassault Systemes since July 2005....
  • Virtual artifact
    Virtual artifact

    A virtual artifact is an immaterial Object that exists in the human mind or in a digital environment, for example the Internet, intranet, virtual reality, cyberspace, etc....
  • Virtual Boy
    Virtual Boy

    Nintendo's was the first handheld game console capable of displaying "true 3D computer graphics graphics" out of the box. Most video games are forced to use Depth perception#Monocular cues to achieve the illusion of three dimensions on a two-dimensional screen, but the Virtual Boy was able to create a more accurate illusion of depth through th...
  • Virtual facility
    Virtual facility

    A Virtual Facility is a highly realistic digital representation of a data center . The term virtual in Virtual Facility refers to the use of the word as in Virtual reality rather than the abstraction of computer resources as in virtualization....
  • Virtual globe
    Virtual globe

    A virtual globe is a 3D computer graphics computer software model or representation of the Earth or another world. A virtual globe provides the user with the ability to freely move around in the virtual environment by changing the viewing angle and position....
  • Virtual Reality Modelling Language
    VRML

    VRML is a standard file format for representing 3-D computer graphics interactive vector graphics, designed particularly with the World Wide Web in mind....
  • Virtual retinal display
    Virtual retinal display

    File:Vrd blocks.gifA virtual retinal display , also known as a retinal scan display , is a display technology that draws a raster display directly onto the retina of the eye....
  • Virtual tour
    Virtual Tour

    A virtual tour is a simulation of an existing location, usually composed of panoramic photography, a sequence of hyperlinked still or video images, and/or 3D Rendering of the real location....
  • Virtual worlds
  • Virtuality Continuum
    Virtuality Continuum

    The Virtuality Continuum is a phrase used to describe a concept that there is a continuous scale ranging between the completely virtual, a Virtual Reality, and the completely real: Reality....
  • VirtuSphere
    VirtuSphere

    VirtuSphere is a virtual reality device. It is, as the name suggests, spherical. It works with computer based simulations and virtual worlds, and rotates as the user walks, allowing for an unlimited Plane upon which the user can walk....
  • V-business
    V-business

    v-Business is the sale of real or virtual products from a virtual world. v-Business or virtual business is a term was first mentioned in "E-Commerce and V-Business: Business Models for Global Success" by Stuart Barnes, Brian Hunt, et al ....
  • VR Photography
    VR photography

    VR photography, or virtual reality photography, is a technique which allows the interactive viewing of wide angle Panoramic photography. A VR Photograph is generally a wide photographic image encompassing a 360 degree circle, but can also encompass an entire spherical view....
  • X3D
    X3D

    X3D is the ISO standard XML-based file format for representing 3D computer graphics, the successor to the VRML . X3D features extension s to VRML , the ability to encode the scene using an XML syntax as well as the Open Inventor-like syntax of VRML97, and enhanced application programming interfaces ....
  • XVROS
    XVROS

    XVROS stands for the "eXtensible Virtual Reality Operating System". The project's goal is to develop a collection of open standards for building distributed online virtual reality environments....


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      Frederick Phillips Brooks, Jr. is a software engineer and computer scientist, best-known for managing the development of OS/360, then later writing candidly about the process in his seminal book The Mythical Man-Month....
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    • Kelly, K., A. Heilbrun and B. Stacks (1989). "Virtual Reality; an Interview with Jaron Lanier
      Jaron Lanier

      Jaron Zepel Lanier is a computer scientist, composer, visual artist, and author. He was a pioneer in, and popularized the term "Virtual Reality" in the early 1980s....
      ", Whole Earth Review
      Whole Earth Review

      Whole Earth was a magazine which was founded in January 1985 after the merger of The Whole Earth Software Catalog and Review and the CoEvolution Quarterly....
      , Fall 1989, no. 64, pp. 108(12)
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    • Krueger, M. W.
      Myron W. Krueger

      Myron Krueger is an American computer artist who developed early interactive works. He is also considered to be one of the first generation virtual reality and augmented reality researchers....
       (1991). Artificial Reality
      Artificial reality

      Artificial reality was the term Myron W. Krueger used to describe his interactive immersive environments, based on video recognition techniques, that put a user in full, unencumbered contact with the digital world....
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      Jaron Lanier

      Jaron Zepel Lanier is a computer scientist, composer, visual artist, and author. He was a pioneer in, and popularized the term "Virtual Reality" in the early 1980s....
      , and F. Biocca (1992). "An Insider's View of the Future of Virtual Reality." Journal of Communication, 42(4), 150
    • Monkman. G.J. - An Electrorheological Tactile Display - Presence (Journal of Teleoperators and Virtual Environments) - Vol. 1, issue 2, pp. 219-228, MIT Press, July 1992.
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    • Packer, Randall, and Ken Jordan (eds). 2002. Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality, Expanded Edition. W.W. Norton.
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    • Rheingold, H.
      Howard Rheingold

      Howard Rheingold is a critic and writer; his specialties are on the cultural, social and political implications of modern communication media such as the Internet, mobile telephony and virtual community ....
       (1992). Virtual Reality, Simon & Schuster, New York, N.Y.
    • Robinett, W.
      Warren Robinett

      Warren Robinett is a designer of interactive computer graphics software, notable as the developer of the Atari 2600's Adventure — the first graphical adventure video game — and as a founder of The Learning Company, where he designed Rocky's Boots....
       (1994). "Interactivity and Individual Viewpoint in Shared Virtual World
      Virtual world

      A virtual world is a computer simulation intended for its user to inhabit and interact via Avatar s. These avatars are usually depicted as textual, two-dimensional, or 3D computer graphics representations, although other forms are possible ....
      s: The Big Screen vs. Networked Personal Displays." Computer Graphics, 28(2), 127
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    • Stanney, K. M. ed. (2002). Handbook of Virtual Environments: Design, Implementation, and Applications. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Mahwah, New Jersey
    • Sutherland, I. E.
      Ivan Sutherland

      Ivan Edward Sutherland is an United States computer scientist and Internet pioneer. He received the Turing Award in 1988 for the invention of Sketchpad, an early predecessor to the sort of graphical user interface that has become ubiquitous in personal computers....
       (1965). "". Proceedings of IFIP 65, vol 2, pp. 506-508
    • Warwick, K.
      Kevin Warwick

      Kevin Warwick is a United Kingdom scientist and professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading, United Kingdom. He is probably best known for his studies on direct neural interface between computer systems and the human nervous system, although he has done much research in the field of robotics....
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    External links