Despite the fact that VR technology and related products have only exploded in popularity in the last few years, the concept of virtual reality is actually not a new thing. Much like the rise of 3D technology at the turn of the century, it's only in the last 10 years that 3D imaging technology has achieved popularity, even though it's been proposed for many years. The earliest consumer-grade VR products appeared in the 1990s. The reason why VR technology, which has suddenly exploded in popularity only recently, has received so much attention and recognition is that, through technological innovation and advancement, the goal of virtual reality has finally been gradually realized: through advanced sensing equipment, VR products allow users to gain the experience of being immersed in another world, and to interact with the virtual environment in this virtual world.
Today, the development of virtual reality technology has made the realism of the fictional electronic world reach a superb level. For example, flight simulators, imaginary fictional distant planets and so on, these scenes are dependent on the computer to create. The current market leaders in VR technology are the Oculus Rift, Sony PlayStation VR, Samsung Gear VR, and HTC Vive, which now feature VR experiences that are almost exclusively gaming-related.
Sensors in VR headsets detect and continuously track the movement of a user's head and vision, allowing them to navigate the virtual reality world and interact with their surroundings in a way that provides a sense of immersion. The "interaction" between human and environment is the most important difference between deep multimedia experience and VR experience. In a VR environment, the user is able to act as a participant in the environment, not just a spectator.
1. 360° panoramic video
The NYT VR video from The New York Times, in collaboration with Google Cardboard, is very cool to watch, but we have to recognize that it's not really VR. Viewing photos on Flickr VR is also a pretty good experience, but that's not VR either. GoPro's Surf, Moto and Ski VR videos.
These pretty good video and photo viewing experiences we mentioned above are essentially 360-degree videos and photos that capture an all-encompassing 3D view of the subject through the camera. These all-encompassing film and video materials are played through a VR headset that can give users a very intense immersive experience, though they are not virtually synthesized, but rather a patchwork of real video materials. Users can look around at their surroundings during the experience, and are even able to explore scenes elsewhere in the video, but are unable to do so in a way that allows them to interact with the scenes therein, and can't really touch or change anything in the video as they would in real-life travel. The entirety of the material captured by the previous camera is the limit of what the user can explore. 360° panoramic video material is a new type of filming and presentation technology. In fact we don't need a VR headset to get such an experience, a 2D screen can fulfill our needs. Therefore, 360° panoramic images are not equivalent to VR.
Although the two are not equivalent, for most of us, the experience of 360° panoramic content is our first attempt to experience immersive VR. There's already a lot of content and material on the market, and there's still a lot of new 360° panoramic imagery coming out of YouTube and Facebook every day. I bet most of the people who have experienced mobile VR devices are talking about these 360° panoramic images, not about games. We believe that the number of panoramic images will explode exponentially in the coming time, and the growth of information is behind the big companies and small teams to promote their own product experience, and constantly inject new experience content into the market. In addition, the cost of experiencing this type of content will not be particularly high, and mobile-type VR devices will suffice, not requiring the help of a high-end PC console.
The 360° panoramic video is very cool, and the change in our daily lives from this technology will likely be disruptive. This technology could potentially be utilized in live streaming of information, for example, we could use VR headsets to watch a full range of presidential debates, professional basketball games, media conferences, and even boxing matches online.
2. Augmented Reality
Virtual reality and 360° panoramic video are not the same, but they have a **** common feature: like a good movie, it allows the user to feel like he or she is in another world, regardless of whether the world is fictionalized by a computer processor or is an image from a distant part of the world. Augmented reality (AR), on the other hand, blends the reality of the user's current environment with virtual scenes and objects, mixing real and virtual things in a seamless way, and then transmits them to the user's eyes.
The best AR product right now is Microsoft's HoloLens system. The helmet includes a camera that allows the user to see what's going on in the room around them, and at the same time, the helmet also allows the user to see computer-created scenes, such as a giant spider lying on a wall. Of course, AR is not just for laughs or horror movie scenes, CNET's senior editor Sean Hollister experienced an AR technology-driven scenario that he believes has the potential to disrupt the future of the consumer market. In this experience, Sean experienced the whole process of buying and choosing a car directly indoors. At that time, he was wearing an AR helmet sitting in the bathroom at home, AR technology for him to present a virtual Volvo S90, just like this, Sean in his own bathroom has been an S90 all the details of touch.
Microsoft isn't the only company exploring AR technology right now, and another strong contender is Magic Leap, which has been a big hit in the tech media, and whose concept videos have been a big topic of conversation around the world, even though it hasn't yet released any hardware. The concept video has become the talk of the town. In the video, there are several scenes that are said to be working demos already, including a robot virtualized by a computer that appears out of thin air directly under a desk in an office, and another demo that shows a virtual model of the solar system appearing in the center of the room.
Whether it's Microsoft, Magic Leap, or some other currently unknown research and development team, the AR technology they specialize in blends and interacts with computer-created virtual objects with real-world scenarios, which is the biggest difference between AR and VR. Let's take an analogy to explain this difference: AR can directly virtualize a Minecraft game world for you on your dining table, and VR is to let you put on a helmet, as if you are completely in the world of Minecraft, you can not see your own dining table at all.
3. Telepresence
So far we've talked about VR technology, which lets the user enter a world completely fictionalized by a computer, and AR technology, which lets the user see a virtual scene created by a computer in the context of the environment they're currently in. Telepresence technology is somewhat similar to the result of mixing AR and VR in one, it can be in a distant place in the form of a robot in another place online communication with others.
Robots developed with telepresence technology, such as the now-famous Double, attach an iPad to a roller-walking robot, which displays an image of the user in the iPad. The user is able to appear anywhere else on the planet, even if they are in the office, and remotely control their walking and vision. The user controls the web-enabled robot through an accompanying app. The robot acts as the user's "puppet" in another place and can perform many actions, such as appearing as the user's doppelg?nger in a meeting, walking, rotating, etc., and when the user wants to turn to someone else in the meeting, the user can control the robot to turn around, just as if it were the other person in the meeting. Double Robot to turn around and see how the others are behaving as if they were physically present.
4. Smart glasses
Maybe many people still haven't figured out what Google Glass actually is. Some may remember Google's 2013 smart glasses conference and think, "OK, Google Glass is pretty much like AR." In fact, this is not the case. Smart glasses are, in fact, a display in front of our eyes. In other words, we can understand it as an enhanced version of the glasses for pilots/drivers, on which data, map information and other materials can be projected for users to use and view. In the current smart glasses space, the display currently only covers the right eye.
The reason why many people confuse Google Glass with AR technology is that the demo video previously released by Google was shot from the user's own first perspective, which gives a feeling very similar to AR -- virtual information and data appearing in the real world. In fact, the Google Glass product does not put and fictionalize any AR-type scene in the real world, it just puts the information on the display of the glasses. To put it another way, Google Glass is like the eyewear version of the Apple Watch, except that the latter works on your wrist, that's all.
If Google Glass doesn't feel life-changing, it's probably because the product still hasn't been commercialized. Although the glasses have not entered the general consumer market, but it is still in some special types of work, can provide very big help for the professional people. This is what Google hopes Google Glass can achieve - in the user can not open the hands of the time, it can help users directly view some important information. Such a feature is especially beneficial in certain situations, such as surgery, building construction, and piloting aircraft.
Google Glass still occupies the position of king in the similar market, but it is worth pointing out that the smart glasses market is currently facing the biggest problem there are two: first, in the face of the general consumer market, Google Glass and other smart glasses do not have a "killer app", which can not really be used to improve the quality of the smart glasses, but also to improve the quality of the smart glasses. First, in the face of the general consumer market, Google Glass and other smart glasses do not have a "killer app" in the App, can not really capture the hearts of consumers; second, the current smart glasses products from the point of view of the appearance, it is very difficult to stimulate the consumer's desire to buy.
5. Video player
Some people may have learned about the Avegant Glyph product, which looks a bit like a VR headset, but functionally, it's just a high-tech way to watch movies or videos. Such a video playback device is not new and trendy, back in 2012, similar products have already appeared on the market, such as Sony HMZ-T1 private 3D player, Zeiss Cinemizer OLED player.
When using the Glyph, the user first connects the HDMI port on the helmet to a computer device. 3D video content will then be played in the helmet, plus it does offer users 3D panoramic 360° video, gaming, and the ability to control devices such as drones. However, such a device has evolved to the point where product functionality is very limited compared to a VR helmet.
With the continuous maturation of AR and VR technologies, more and more real and virtual scenes are beginning to realize the integration of interoperability, and in the future we will be able to see more scenes that begin to utilize these two technologies. We have analyzed and compared in detail above the difference between VR technology and other technologies, but despite this, we can still foresee that in the future there will still be a lot of people will be these technologies generally referred to as "virtual reality". I hope to use this article to let you see behind the fancy gimmicks and publicity of some products, and understand what the essence of this technology really is
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