advanced interactions and virtual reality

A virtual reality setting must engage key human senses with enough accuracy to provide participating people the impression of participating in a real setting. Given the constraints of present day technology, this usually entails screen displays that span much of the human span of vision with satisfactory resolution, high-end surround sound, and communication between humans and computers based on head and hand location, movement, and patterning that records more than 50 times each second. More sophisticated tactile and motion communication that involves movement of the rest of the body and engages senses other than vision, hearing, and touch are frequently above today's base-line criteria for Virtual Reality (VR). These advanced functions may, however, become the norm for virtual reality in the future. 3001 AD also provides information about these issues.

Some science and equipment used in Virtual Reality (VR) systems to track our movement for human-to-computer interaction include: multi-axis mouse and joysticks; instrumented gloves with mechanical, magnetic, ultrasound or optical monitors that track hand location and motion; gesture recognition systems that encode hand gestures and facial expressions using mechanical or optical monitors; Head Mounted Displays (head mounted displays) wherein movement is detected through mechanical, magnetic, ultrasound or optical sensing machines; electronically-wired clothing with multiple data transmitters and/or mechanical, magnetic, ultrasound or optical location monitors; and omni directional walkways. These technologies each have advantages and disadvantages. Some types of equipment detect motion rapidly and accurately, but are often clumsy to use and limit the range of body motion caused by the tangible connections that they require. Inertial machines require fewer tangible connectors, but respond gradually and with less accuracy. Devices built on magnetism and ultrasound also tend to be slow and magnetic machines can be skewed by nearby ferrous parts. One possibility for optical movement measurement involves attaching several Light Emitting Diodes to clothing and then monitoring the movement of the Light Emitting Diodes via computer, but this method only records a limited number of points on the body. Also, Virtual Tours Thousand Oaks, California discusses these concepts.

Virtual Reality Role Playing Games has more information on virtual reality and similar topics.