What is Virtual Reality (VR) and its benefits?
VR is a technology that makes you feel like you’re in another place, with sights and sounds that make your head spin. VR uses computer graphics to generate artificial environments which seem as if they are real while transforming input from the user’s environment or computer system into data that can be stored and processed by a computer. While VR is largely associated with video games, it has applications in many other fields including medical training, education, and art.
Virtual Reality (VR) is a computer-generated simulation of a 3D image or environment that can be interacted with in a seemingly real or physical way through special equipment, such as headsets. This type of technology has been used for decades in fields like aviation and engineering, but lately it’s been co-opted by the entertainment industry, specifically for video games.
VR has an incredible potential for use in education and therapy as well but is just now becoming cost-effective enough to make this feasible.
What exactly is Augmented Reality (AR) and its benefits?
Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that uses the real world to show virtual elements in the form of text, pictures, videos, and even 3D objects. You can experience this by taking a picture or video of your surroundings and adding special effects. Maybe you want to put yourself up on stage as if you were singing at an open mic night, or maybe you want to add an animated cat sitting on your desk. These AR experiences are made possible using many different technologies like smartphones, tablets, and headsets.
In the end, the key difference between AR and Virtual Reality (VR) is that in VR, you immerse yourself in a digital world while with AR the real world is overlaid with virtual elements.
AR can be used for many different purposes and here are just a few examples:
• In real estate it’s used to visualize a new property before buying it, like seeing how furniture will fit into your home or having an expert guide you through your new house.
• In gaming it adds a new level of reality, like having monsters appear in your living room while you are playing.
• In the medical field it helps to train operations and rescue missions, by seeing the future outcome of the operation before actually doing it on a real patient.
• In education students of all ages can learn about different topics by bringing in information from different places at once, like multiple people talking about an important patent or having a math tutor pointing out your mistakes during an exam.
The Next Generation of Augmented and Virtual Reality
In the last few years, augmented reality has reached more than 1 billion users with its smartphone-based offerings. It’s now estimated that virtual, or computer-generated, the reality is on track to reach that milestone in the next three years. For decades now, scientists have been working on combining these two technologies into a single platform called 【Metaverse】
.
A metaverse is a collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically persistent virtual space, including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the internet.
The Metaverse is a projection of the future where every pixel of reality can be controlled. It’s a kind of digital realm that integrates all forms of technology over the physical and the virtual worlds to create an all-in-one experience for consumers at any time.
The Metaverse is the next step in advancement in technology by seamlessly integrating our existing reality and computer-generated one (AR) with each other using 3D vision and communication. The technology of tomorrow will reach all users seamlessly through the internet and mobile devices, seamlessly integrating all digital media into our reality.
Mixed Reality:
MR stands for mixed reality. Mixed reality is the co-existence of digital and physical objects in real-life space. It’s a new form of virtual or augmented reality that blends digital content with a live view of the physical world around you. This means you can access a whole new range of information, including real-time 3D maps, 360° videos, and more via your smartphones, tablets, or PCs (the Microsoft HoloLens headset delivers MR content to the wearer).
So, for example, you could search for an item on your smartphone, but instead of just getting a list of results from Google or Amazon, you can now see photos and videos of the item in situ. You could also access a full 360° video of the product, so you can judge it for yourself before buying.
How we can leverage the benefits of AR, VR, and Metaverse?
The development of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality has been one of the most exciting technologies in recent times. Researchers are working on a variety of new technological applications that could revolutionize how we interact with the world around us. These technologies are changing quickly and allow us to escape our physical location, allowing us to explore different worlds, or even play a game using their headsets. As such, these technologies have many potential benefits for businesses, education, and beyond. In this article, we will discuss just a few examples of these benefits.
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality are starting to be used in multiple industries already.
Healthcare is one of the most interesting areas for AR, VR, and Metaverse. While the technology is still not mature enough to be used fully in this industry, we can see numerous examples where it can make a huge impact. One of the most promising applications at the moment is medical training. The training itself usually happens in a separate room, and the user is often isolated from their environment and cannot fully interact with the subject.
Using an Augmented Reality or Virtual Reality headset, we could have a realistic simulation of the simulated world in front of us. The environment would be so real that we can interact with it as if it were our own real world. This kind of training would allow us to understand how our body reacts to certain injuries in more realistic terms.
Surgery
Another promising area for AR and VR is surgery. Medical professionals can be able to guide us in our path through the surgeon’s world, allowing us to see the operation from a different perspective. As this is still in the early stages, we should have further discussions about this technology and its impact in the future.
Education
Another area where Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality could have a big impact is education. An Augmented Reality or Virtual Reality world would allow us to design our own courses, learning environments, and more, helping us learn at our own pace and be more engaged in class.
Conclusion:
With the boom of AR and VR technology, it is now possible for consumers to immerse themselves in digital spaces as if they were there. This immersion can be used for educational purposes to bring a classroom experience closer or to reinforce experiences through virtual gaming.
With so many benefits that the technology offers, it is likely that we will see more companies in the education field using these new technologies. However, mainstream adoption of this tech will require successful integration with existing learning tools and platforms in order to make these methods more effective.