The Power of VR

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What is VR?
VR, a common abbreviation of the words Virtual Reality, is a technology used to methaphorically transport its user into a different, virtual world. The most common ways of achieving said task are through the use of goggles, helmets, or glasses that use LED displays and lenses to show 3d imagery right in front of the user’s eyes, in real-time.
Some of the more well-known companies that focus their efforts on the development of VR are:

  • Oculus by Facebook
  • HTC
  • Valve


VR in entertainment
It wouldn’t be fair to talk about VR without mentioning what is its birthplace and most popular spot, the entertainment industry. The first Virtual Reality headsets have been created with the projection of visual entertainment in mind and to this day, it is their most common use.

Some people consider this type of content a niche, requiring specialized (and not cheap) equipment in a form of a headset, usually in addition to an already expensive computer capable of handling the calculations needed to run Virtual Reality.

However, the VR market seems to be doing just fine and is steadily growing, its size sitting currently at 4,8 billion USD$, 1,4 billion of which is from video games alone. With 6 million headsets sold in the last 12 months, the amount of people in possession of the technology capable of running the complicated software is increasing. It wouldn’t be a far cry to say that it may soon start to rival the sales produced by more mainstream products, like Play-station, which sold 12 million units this year.

VR in Training

The other interesting use for VR is practise. For example, when pilots train to “earn their wings”, they are often put in front of a flight simulator. This expensive piece of equipment is used to get the user familiar with the complicated art of flying a plane. However, the cost of this training could be greatly reduced if one would emoply VR. The large, expensive displays could be replaced by a single head-set that would provide immersive 360 degrees of visuals while also allowing the instructors to monitor what exactly the trainee is focusing on during the flight.

However, Aviation isn’t the only field in which Virtual reality is used to train rookies. Recently, a german company by the name of Refence adapted the technology to fulfill the needs of law enforcement. Using a large, empty room, tracking cameras and virtual markers, they are able to put people into an infinite ammount of difficult scenarios which would be impossible to recreate without said technology. Bank robberies, hostage situations and other dangerous situation can all be accuratly depicted and used to get the police force used to dealing with such high-risk factors.
Additionally, the virtual set-up allows for perfect tracking of each of the moves that officers make, where their weapon was pointing and recreation of the entire action, making learning from ones mistakes much much easier.

Conclusion

VR is a piece of technology that is still in its infantile age, yet it is able provide us with so much. One can only imagine where it will take us in the following years and to assume that it’s going to slightly grow is a huge understatement. Anyone who has even the slightest interest in technology shouldn’t turn the blind eye to this piece of hardware, which one day will change the world.

Sources:
https://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality/history.html
https://www.statista.com/topics/2532/virtual-reality-vr/
https://www.geospatialworld.net/blogs/why-and-how-virtual-reality-is-growing/
https://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality-applications/engineering.html#:~:text=Virtual%20reality%20engineering%20includes%20the,or%20potential%20risks%20before%20implementation.

https://screenrant.com/ps5-first-sales-year-short-ps4/#:~:text=Sony%20reported%20that%20it%20sold,life%20cycle%20(via%20Engadget).
https://www.refense.com/


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One thought on “The Power of VR

  1. 46480 says:

    It is mind-blowing how much power that small headset has. Great and very entertaining article. I think it can have some impact on disabled people, they can ‘regain’ their disability in the virtual universe. There is also potential for F1 racers to train with VR since the experience is so immersive!

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