Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Technology Virtual Reality1 Virtual Reality1 Close your eyes and imagine yourself being able to jump off the Empire State Building and fly over New York City on your own personal tour. You catch a glimpse of Madison Square Garden and a breathtaking view of Broadway. Jump back a few hundred years into the medieval times and joust with a knight. One last visualization—you are playing baseball in Busch Stadium on the same team as Mark McGuire. The crowd is wild. You soak up the glory as you realize they are cheering for you! Now stop fantasizing. These things will probably never happen to you in real life. However, there is a way that you can experience the feeling that something like this is happening. If you’re open to new ideas and you have a good imagination, virtual reality maybe a toy for you! What exactly is virtual reality? Well, virtual reality can be defined as any medium where one feels a sense of “immersion” and “presence” in the environment generated or described. This means that if your imagination is wild enough, watching any television show or reading a book can be virtual reality. I will define virtual reality as a highly interactive, computer-generated environment. Graphics-based virtual reality allows one to break the 2-Dimensional constraints of today’s familiar equipment and has many practical applications. Four of these applications are medical, space exploration and training, physical, and entertainment. Medical researchers have been using virtual reality techniques to synthesize diagnostic images of a patient’s body to do predictive modeling of radiation treatment using images created by ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and X-ray. A radiation therapist in a virtual world could view and expose a tumor at any angle and then model specific doses and configuration of radiation beams to aim at the tumor more effectively. Since radiation destroys human tissue easily, there is no allowance for error. Also, doctors could use “virtual cadavers” to practice rare operations which are tough to perform. This is an excellent use because one could perform the operation over and over without the worry of hurting any human life. However, this sort of practice may have its limitations because of the fact that it is only a virtual world. At this time, the computer-user interfaces are not well enough developed and it is estimated that it will take 5 to 10 years to develop this technology. The book Virtual Reality & Beyond states that NASA built a complete model of the surface of the moon to train the crew on landing techniques. The same crews were subjected to emergencies in the simulator and were given grades on how they handled themselves. The emergencies that were simulated were like the ones seen in the movie Apollo 13. Architectural designers have also found that virtual reality can be useful in visualizing what their buildings will look like when they are put together. A lot of times, using a two dimensional diagram to represent a 3D home is confusing. The people that fund large projects would like to be able to see what they are paying for, before it is constructed. An example, which is fascinating, would be that of designing an elementary school. Designers could walk in the school from a child’s point of view to gain insight on how high the water fountains are, or how narrow the halls are. The entertainment industry stands to gain a lot from VR. With the video game revolution of bigger and better games coming out all the time, this could be the biggest breakthrough ever. It would be fantastic to have sword fights, which actually feel real. Virtual movies, also called vroomies, are being developed and allow the viewer to interact with the characters in the movie. Sources show that Universal Studios and other parks are developing a virtual reality amusement park, which will incorporate these games and vroomies. In the future, VR will be available to everyone for under $1,000. Jaron Lannier sees virtual reality at the “heart of a mixture of education and fun.” He says, “You could take kids on a field trip to simulated primeval forest, and they could watch big dinosaurs—they could take turns at being a Tyrannosaurus Rex and trying to step on their friends.” With virtual reality there are many possibilities. University of North Carolina researcher, Dr. Warren Robinett, explains, “My take on the whole field of virtual reality is that it’s a way to expand human perception, to let you see the invisible. In a way, you’re ‘boldly going where no man has gone before.’” It is a highly interactive computer-generated environment. It lets us accomplish what was previously impossible. It is a communications medium and it is an artistic tool. There are many applications of it, including medical, space exploration and training, physical, and entertainment. VR can serve as anything, from a research tool for a rocket scientist, to a toy for a child. It is a growing technology, and has many possibilities as a teaching tool. Virtual reality is digital magic!! Bibliography: BIBLIOGRAPHY Isdale, Jerry. “What is Virtual Reality?” www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~cph/VR/whatisvr.html. 3 Nov. 2000. Jortberg, Charles A. Virtual Reality & Beyond. Edina: Abdo & Daughters, 1997. Pascoe, Elaine. Virtual Reality: Beyond the Looking Glass. Woodbridge: Blackbirch Press, 1998. “Virtual reality-ZDNet Webopedia Definition and Links.” www.zdwebopedia.com/Multimedia/virtual_reality.html. 3 Nov. 2000. Word Count: 838
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