Virtual Reality Continues to Enter Our World
Virtual reality has been a fixture in science fiction for nearly as long as the genre has been around. From Pygmalion’s Spectacles, to Star Trek’s holodeck, to the rich, high-tech world of Ready Player One, creatives and scientists alike have long recognized the massive potential of virtual reality technology. These technologies, which barely a decade ago seemed like the comeuppance of a distant future, have been quickly asserting themselves as fixtures both in entertainment and industry.
Virtual reality technologies harness the rapidly increasing power of computers to create simulated worlds for users to interact with. While most often associated with gaming systems, virtual reality systems and technologies have proven themselves to have applications in scientific fields, business, and even medicine.
VR Gaming Systems
The market for virtual reality gaming systems has exploded in recent years. Systems such as the HTC Vive, the Oculus, and Playstation VR are quickly asserting themselves as industry giants in gaming. Most VR gaming systems are a combination of handhelds and wearables, often a headset for the visual components and two handheld controllers.
Some systems require the use of a PC while others still are stand-alone systems that contain all necessary hardware onboard the wearable headset. Infrared sensors track the user’s position and the position of their hands in relation to the headset. Many controllers offer haptic feedback that only heightens the immersive experience. Increasingly simple setups make VR systems more accessible to the everyday person. You simply turn it on and start playing.
Such VR systems have had cult followings for a while, but have recently been working their way into the mainstream. A noticeable shift happened as price points began to drop until they were comparable to other systems. Even more recently, Valve and Sierra Studio’s Half-Life: Alyx has successfully brought the “triple-A feel” to VR systems, which were previously dominated by indie games.
Alyx is heralding a new era of virtual reality gaming. With top of the line graphics, this highly-anticipated installment in the Half-Life series provides a thrilling story set in an immersive and highly responsive world. Playing as Alyx, our main character, you can interact with nearly every object in the game, both actively and passively. Perhaps most impressively, Valve’s level design is not just a transposition of console gaming level design. Instead, it’s uniquely suited to VR. Valve’s awareness of how to play to VR’s strengths and weaknesses is a virtue other developers will hopefully take note of as virtual reality gaming continues to rise in popularity.
Potential Future Uses of Virtual Reality
As virtual reality technology has grown stronger and been refined, it has found its way in early stages into other fields besides gaming. For example, many doctors and psychiatrists are beginning to use virtual reality systems to effectively treat a number of physical and psychological conditions. One of the most visible potentials of virtual reality in psychiatry is as a form of exposure therapy for patients with PTSD or phobias. Teams of programmers and medical professionals can construct programs that can gradually expose patients to their fears, which in turn can help them to build emotional resilience to improve their quality of life. Exposure therapy is not a new concept, but VR can provide a controlled environment that can be much more efficient compared to traditional visualization exercises.
VR has found further footholds in medicine. Simulations of surgeries are being considered to not only train surgeons, but also to help familiarize patients with their own surgeries, strengthening informed consent. VR could be used as a way to relax patients, often as a means of distracting patients from pain. This has been found to be potentially effective for recovering burn victims and individuals in labor. Virtual reality also has the potential to add extra layers of comprehension and engagement at medical and scientific conferences, where researchers are presenting their work. This kind of immersive data visualization could also have applications in business and insurance. When examining both the current and future uses of VR, it’s easy to believe that the future is coming at us fast.
