State of Virtual Reality
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[Last edition : 22 Jan 2008]
[This article will be regularly updated with new info to keep up to date. Feel free to comment!]
Introduction
Back in the 90’s, Virtual Reality was about to be a big revolution. Expectations were high and disappointment cruel. Nearly 20 years after, only a few people know what is possible nowadays with VR.
The technology silently evolved in research labs and big companies, and now prototypes have evolved into commercially viable products. The professional VR market is very healthy and growing fast.
Industrials are using VR systems to prototype their products and train their personnel; researchers are using it to understand and treat us; and the mass market is slowly rediscovering that playing with your body is the ultimate experience.
With so much false ideas lying around the web, it’s high time to make a lucid point on where VR is now with a small state of the art.
“As an image is worth a thousand words, a virtual environment is worth a thousand pictures!”
- Applications : Who is using VR to do what?
- Devices : Input devices, trackers, haptics, gloves …
- Displays : Caves, HMDs …
- Consumer Hardware ( coming soon)
NB: I will only be talking about “immersive” VR, which excludes SecondLife and Quicktime VR. See What is (not) VR.
