Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are responsible for the totally new and innovative paradigm for interacting with the electronic world. In this case virtual reality is more immersive, but there are some distinct characteristics between which one of them is.
Virtual Reality
Virtual reality offers users an experience of being provided a synthetic environment, which is true to the last detail and generated entirely by computer technology. Headsets such as the Oculus Rift create a world exclusively virtual, with no physical world being present. The view is substituted with a simulated world. With this world, the user can explore it, move within, and interact with virtual things and characters. This is accomplished by the presence of objects and the depth of the digital space. Thus it gives an impression and feeling of reality. Top-class VR does not simply simulate virtual reality, but actually tricks the brain thinking the digital world is real.
It is the gaming industry that has been the primary engine of VR evolution, providing gamers with the opportunity to explore and immerse themselves in the game world. However, nowadays this area is greatly developed and has many applications and possibilities to use. These types of virtual tourism include exploration of virtual places with which users are already familiar and travel that is reserved for students or serves professional training such as virtual flight simulation. Virtual therapy also belongs to this category of applications as it allows to treat phobia and PTSD by immersing patients into a virtual world that resembles a real situation.
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Augmented Reality
To the contrary though, while VR places reality in the back seat, AR superimposes digital information on the real environment. The real world of the users of AR is still in view, though with additional virtual images, text, animation, and audio content right on it. Different from VR, AR is not a tool to make total immersion since the user still relates to the real world whilst the digital elements are superimposed into it.
AR technology, among other things, comprises apps for smartphones and tablets, just like the Microsoft HoloLens headsets. Of the popular AR apps, Pokémon Go is the one that’s considered to be the most famous – it utilizes the cameras of the phones to overlay the characters of Pokémon on the real-world settings that are displayed on the phone’s screen. Another application for AR is augmenting your navigation system with a digital model that overlays directions over the current camera view and providing you with information about the exhibits directly from your device in museums and art galleries by pointing at them. AR is also great for business use – from visualizing rooms inside which virtual furniture can be placed to providing maintenance instructions over machinery with the help of AR resources.
Importance and Future
Virtual reality (VR) as well as augmented reality (AR) occupy a unique space in the gaming world with new technology and by facilitating novel levels of immersion, interactivity, and information, they are poised to change the gaming, tourism, education, healthcare, the design, and the manufacturing. VR technology allows us to create a world where we can simulate anything, the users can be taken anywhere, where only their imagination and unimaginable boundaries exist. AR uses digital data to include the user into the reality through his/her field of view which educates, assists, and amuses us.
On the other hand, VR and AR are not that new as we think and now, they have reached the critical stage of commercialization. Major investments in the consumer headset and app space by way of Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple may soon reach the mass market. VR and AR hardware will continue to evolve and their content collections will expand. Thus, they will be getting from being just a novelty to a platform that can truly make a game-changing impact. Their exclusive capacities in terms of digital manipulation of reality and making the perception so creative, the application of it in different industries or our personal use will be unending. Imagining the future is only limited by our own choices.
