Information technology: What are the characteristics of virtual reality? What are the application fields?

From the technical point of view, the virtual reality system has the following three basic characteristics: three "I" immersion-interaction-imagination, emphasizing the leading role of people in the virtual system. From the past, people can only observe the processing results from the outside of the computer system to the environment created by the computer system, from the past, people can only interact with one-dimensional digital information in the computing environment through keyboards and mice to the environment where people can interact with multi-dimensional information through various sensors; In the past, people could only learn from the results of quantitative calculation, so as to deepen their understanding of things. Now it is possible for people to gain perceptual and rational understanding from the environment of combining qualitative and quantitative, so as to deepen their concepts and sprout new ideas. In short, in the future virtual system, people's purpose is to make this information processing system composed of computers and other sensors "meet" people's needs as much as possible, instead of forcing people to "make do" with those unfriendly computer systems.

Multiple sensitivity

The so-called multi-perception means that in addition to the visual perception possessed by general computer technology, there are also auditory perception, force perception, tactile perception, motion perception and even taste perception and smell perception. The ideal virtual reality technology should have the perceptual function that everyone has. Due to the limitation of related technologies, especially sensing technology, the sensing function of virtual reality technology is limited to vision, hearing, force, touch and movement.

[Editor] Immersion

Also known as telepresence, it refers to the real degree that users feel as protagonists in the simulation environment. The ideal simulation environment should make it difficult for users to distinguish between true and false, and let users devote themselves to the three-dimensional virtual environment created by computers. Everything in this environment looks real, sounds real, moves real, even smells and tastes real, just like it feels in the real world.

[edit] interactivity

Refers to the user's operability of objects in the simulation environment and the natural degree of environmental feedback (including real-time). For example, a user can directly grasp a virtual object in a simulated environment with his hands. At this time, his hands feel something he is holding, and he can feel the weight of the object. The caught object in the field of vision can immediately move with the movement of his hands.

[Editor] Imagination

It is emphasized that virtual reality technology should have a broad imaginable space, which can broaden the cognitive scope of human beings, not only reproduce the real environment, but also conceive an objective non-existent or even impossible environment at will.

Generally speaking, a complete virtual reality system consists of a virtual environment, a virtual environment processor with a high-performance computer as the core, a visual system with a helmet-mounted display as the core, an auditory system with speech recognition, sound synthesis and sound positioning as the core, a body orientation and posture tracking device with an orientation tracker, a data glove and a data jacket as the main body, and functional units such as a taste, a smell, a touch and a force feedback system.