Introduction to Augmented and Virtual Reality

Humans have been using stories to pass on culture and knowledge to the next generation for thousands of years. Stories have also been used as a means of an escape – to transform the listener to far and distant lands – imaginary or real. Stories have been used to motivate and evoke emotions and also to impart life lessons and educating the listener.

Since the advent of digital technologies, humans have utilized multimedia to enhance the experience of storytelling. We go to great lengths to immerse ourselves into the fantasy. However, our brains are never quite convinced that we are part of the experience. The sense of presence that we are part of the experience rather than a third-party observer can never be truly achieved. This also prohibits from multiple people sharing the same story in a uniform manner.

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This is all set to change with the advent of immersive technologies such as Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.

Virtual Reality (VR) is a technology that allows us to feel the sense of presence. Conventional methods of communication and storytelling did not trick the brain into thinking that its part of the experience. There was always a disconnect. However, Virtual Reality can truly trick the brain into believing that we are present in the experience - sometimes to the extent that people feel joy, terror or sickness.

This sense of presence has many applications. It can be used for training and education, engineering, science, history, law enforcement, retail and entertainment to name a few. There is virtually no industry that cannot stand to benefit from the developments in the virtual reality technology.

Another counterpart of Virtual Reality is Augmented Reality or AR for short. AR does not aim to replace a user’s reality with a synthetic one, instead it strives to improve it by adding contextual information within the field of view of the user. This can serve to guide the user, provide contextual information without losing sight. It would be helpful for example, to be able to see the map and the road at the same time, therefore not having to get distracted while driving.

Further developments aim to combine Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality into what is known as Mixed Reality (MR) where real objects can be detected and placed in a virtual world. This will give a physical underpinning to VR and will allow users to interact with the virtual world in ways never before possible. Together, AR, VR and MR are called XR for short.