What is Virtual Reality (VR)?

Virtual reality (VR) is a technology that creates virtual environments and experiences using a mixture of hardware and software. These experiences are used both professionally (training, education, and collaboration) and personally (video gaming, TV, and movie entertainment).

Virtual reality uses hardware (head-mounted displays, tracking systems, graphic processing) and software (web- or local-based applications) to envelop the user into a virtual world.  

Through the combination of virtual reality hardware powering the experience and software creating the environments, users are placed into a world that enables them to perform actions or have experiences that are either difficult or impossible to emulate in the real world.

VR is usually described as having three distinct types. These include non-immersive, semi-immersive, and fully immersive.

Non-immersive VR is usually provided on a computer or mobile phone screen. These experiences are considered non-immersive because they do not fully envelop the user in an environment, and thus, the user is still aware of their physical surroundings.  

Semi-immersive VR involves a blend of the real world and the virtual world. For this type, users often wear a head-mounted display (HMD) and may also have access to hand-operated controllers.  This experience is semi-immersive instead of fully immersive because a user will experience the virtually created world while being somewhat aware of their physical surroundings. An example of this is to be seated in an office, with the HMD projecting screens of telemetry around the room. This is the combination of the real-world office and virtualized screens.

Fully immersive VR involves placing the user into a world that aims to completely envelop their senses so they become focused entirely on the created environment. For this, the user is again provided with an HMD, but with a higher focus on providing a fully encompassing environment. Users can sometimes also be given gloves, body suits, and other equipment so that their senses are in tune with the created virtual world. Further to this, some scenarios enable the use of a “cave automated virtual environment,” appropriately abbreviated to “CAVE.” This takes it one step further by utilizing three to six walls within a room on which to project the environment.

Virtual reality provides the opportunity to experience various interactions without the need to create them physically, which reduces costs. For example, a trainee surgeon can use virtual reality to learn how to operate on a patient without the risks of contamination and injury.

Virtual reality also enables a user to experience situations that, without VR, would never be accessible — for example, giving an engineer the opportunity to see a virtualization of the inside of an airplane turbine while it’s in use during a flight.

A technology similar to VR is known as augmented reality (AR). Both create a virtual world, but AR focuses on adding additional information to the “real” world.

For example, while a VR headset may create the experience of a user sitting in a movie theater, an AR headset may approach this differently and enable the user to place a large movie theater screen on the wall of their living room.

Both AR and VR use similar technologies, but AR’s focus on blending the real and the virtual is becoming increasingly explored, namely with the Meta Quest 3 and the Apple Vision Pro.

Virtual reality provides opportunities for a wide range of uses applicable in both professional and personal contexts.

In terms of professional usage, virtual reality enables students and trainees to access virtualizations of tools, labs, virtual classrooms, and more.

VR has also gained increased usage in entertainment and leisure, such as in video games, social networking, and fitness.

While variations in manufacturers and formats of virtual reality exist, several hardware and software elements are often present.

Head-mounted display: While there was reliance on 3D monitors and 3D projectors in the past, HMDs have become the most affordable and practical method for creating visuals in semi-immersive and fully immersive VR. To do this, display technologies, including high-refresh-rate and high-resolution screens, are placed in front of the user’s eyes. An HMD is usually one of the first elements people think of when considering VR.

Graphics processing: While some virtual reality headsets may leverage a high-powered computer for graphics processing, some HMDs will have their own integrated graphics processing unit (GPU). This technology enables the rendering of virtual worlds that, depending on the power of the GPU, can create high-resolution, highly detailed, immersive environments.

Tracking systems: As VR places a user in a virtual environment, tracking system technologies are essential in translating head, body, and even eye movement into the virtually created world. Tracking systems can be implemented inside the headset (known as inside-out tracking), motion trackers within the user’s location (outside-in tracking), or a mixture of both.  

Input devices: Input devices are usually part of a virtual reality experience. These can vary depending on the system, but they are often hand operated and can provide button inputs and track spatial movement. These are regularly incorporated as a way for a user to feel like they can interact with their virtual world. It is worth noting that, as technology progresses, there has become less of a reliance on physical input devices, with increasing reliance on capturing the movement of a user’s hands only. For example, the Meta Quest 3 and the Apple Vision Pro both use solely hand and finger movement for navigating their interfaces.

Software: Once a user has access to high-powered virtual reality hardware, software is the technology that provides a wide range of accessible experiences. This software can vary in terms of professional use, such as education and training, as well as personal uses, such as video games, TV, and movies.

Since its inception in 1960, VR’s goal has been the same — to transport a user into a virtual world that enables them to experience it as if it were real.

However, the main element that has consistently changed over the decades is the sophistication of technology used to achieve this. 

As time has gone on, we have progressed to headsets that sit directly on a user’s face; provide highly detailed and near photo-realistic images; can track a user’s movement in a 3D spatial field; and provide a variety of visual, audio, tactile, and even olfactory stimuli.

 To speculate on the future of virtual reality is to hypothesize that this trajectory would continue with headsets that become lighter and come in smaller formats, such as wearable glasses and perhaps even contact lenses.

Alongside the decrease in size and weight of these devices, their power would also likely increase. This could include better screen technology including higher resolutions and refresh rates, as well as more accurate and natural motion tracking that does away with peripherals and further decreases the differences in what we experience in the virtual and real worlds.

 VR software will also likely become more sophisticated as its prevalence and commercial impact draws developers and investment that increase the quality and quantity of software for VR experiences.

To begin or progress your journey into the virtual world, get in touch with Ansys. We have the knowledge and technology to enable you to generate high-quality VR experiences, as well as the tools that let you experience them.

Related Resources