What we need to know about Virtual Reality - Introduction

Except you time travelled from the prehistoric past era when dinosaurs roamed the earth, you must have heard of the VR popularly called Virtual Reality. Even if you haven’t had the opportunity to wear one of the headgears, you may as well know a little about this fascinating new technology. Recently, I and my girlfriend when to the cinema to see a movie, we arrived pretty earlier, about an hour before the movies start, so we had to settle for some time wasters while we await our movie. Luckily for us, there was a VR booth in the mall, and we decided to go for a little adventure in the unreal world of virtual reality.

In this post, we will be looking at the different components of a VR set, and their various roles in creating a mimicry of a realistic 3-dimensional environment that we humans can interact and perceive as real. That is pretty much the definition of the Virtual reality - a 3-dimensional environment, real enough for humans to think it is real.

Basics

The VR device set, just like any computer device or gadget, is made up of both the mixture of the software and the hardware and bot component work hand in hand to stimulate an environment that is so real, you’ll most of your senses to come alive in order to fully enjoy this ride. Speaking of senses, new technologies are being worked up to develop VR sets that users can perceive smell. Currently, VR sets in the market are limited to just hearing, vision, and a joystick that gives you control over what you interact with.

Here come the various components of a VR Set

The Headset

The most popular VR product we all must have come across it the VR headset, most tech companies that are into the production of VR sets like Sony and Google, try hard to make their product look more aesthetically finesse, but the concept is basically the same. These headsets have been designed to work either with a headset or with a third party device such as a PC, Video game console or a mobile phone where a software is being run to enable the VR to function.

Although VR headsets that work with mobile phones are said to be the low-end sets as they offer simpler experiences, and the devices are a lot cheaper in comparison to the high-end headsets. The most notable example is the Google Cardboard, which can go for as low as $15

Content Feed

The content is supplied typically by a hardware device, which could be a phone, computer or a game console. What is important here is that this device provides the information that makes the experience of engaging, more fun.

Display

This is the part that our eyes can see, hence the fun part. Previous versions of headsets have a separate display for each eye, well, that is in the past now, today, the full width of your phone screen can be used as a display. And the effect and user experience are surreal.

Controls

These could be in form of buttons which gives users the freedom to carry out some actions while interacting with the VR set. The simplest VR set, such as the google cardboard, online has a few buttons on the headset, which users can use to interact with the system.

We will look at these items in the next blog post, watch out for this space.

Resource

TIME - Everything to Know About VR

WIKIPEDIA - Virtual Reality