Is Virtual Reality The New Reality?

Is Virtual Reality our new future reality now?

Imagine sitting in the comfort of your room and at the same time experiencing the world from an entirely different dimension. Getting first-hand experience of meeting your favourite celebrities, visiting the Eiffel Tower or enjoying that roller coaster ride you were wishing to experience.

Sounds interesting right? Especially in a lockdown! But how is it possible? How can you sit in the conform of your home and still experience and do everything? How can we perhaps trick the mind into believing what you see and maybe teleporting it into a new reality that it virtual?

Today, this has been made possible through immersive VIRTUAL REALITY or VR. In VR various environments can be simulated using computer graphics and animation techniques so that the user feels immersed in the surroundings and experiences telepresence.

While we may have reached the pinnacle of technology for experiencing 2-dimensional entertainment content, VR opens up new opportunities for not only viewing but experiencing the content using multiple senses using haptics in an interactive and immersive way. The application areas of VR are not just limited to the entertainment industry but extend into the fields of education, business, healthcare, defence, training, retail and of course social media collaboration and gaming.

Let us throw some light on how is VR helping these fields grow and develop.

VR and Healthcare:

VR helps healthcare professionals train for complicated procedures without actually working on a real body. It can be quite effective in treating mental health issues particularly PTSD, anxiety and used to reduce phantom body pain.

Research by Neuroscientist Olaf Blanke at EPFL, Switzerland cited that, “With the help of virtual reality, we managed to provoke an illusion: the illusion that the subject’s legs were being lightly tapped, when in fact the subject was being tapped on the back, above the spinal cord lesion. When we did this, the subjects also reported that their pain had diminished” (For more information on the studies refer to the following link: https://www.epfl.ch/research/domains/cnp/index-html/labs/blankelab/

VR and Real Estate:

For those who wish to buy or rent properties in other cities, VR can help them actually experience it. In VR, you can be teleported in these properties without actually having to travel or leave home. Also, VR can be used to give you an actual tour of your final finished property. For example, walking through your future kitchen or bathrooms before they have even been developed. Today VR is fast replacing expensive and unportable show-homes.  https://sunovatech.com

VR and Education :

Through the use of Virtual Reality, new aspects for learning in present curriculum are possible. In times of a pandemic, currently the students rely on video conferencing for their education, however, this hampers their learning process as it can be monotonous and boring as these classes are in a 2-dimensional medium. Virtual Reality overcomes this problem easily. It is helping the students to get the feel of an actual classroom, while they stay safe in their homes. It also allows them to experience education in a more immersive and collaborative way. Today the Ed-Tech content companies are busy creating out of classroom virtual collaboration experiences that will perhaps soon replace the standard textbooks. You may well be able to goto a school in VR or have a discussion with Sir Issac Newton and see his experiments in VR. See https://klipvr.com

VR in Marketing and Business:

Piggybacking on virtual reality can completely transform marketing and businesses. Marketers today have at their disposal a completely new medium to sell their products to buyers through commercials which would not have to be static. The potential buyers can be taken into a virtual world to experience the market in a completely different way. Would we ever need a real shopping mall in the near future? VR makes it possible to select and try products online quickly and you can try your new dresses on your digital twin or avatar. VR and retail would change the way we shop and revolutionise the try before you buy the concept! According to Goldman Sachs, the market for AR and VR in retail will reach $1.6 billion by 2025. See https://steantycip.com/blogs/future-of-retail-is-virtual/

VR in Training and Learning New Skills:

What if I was to say that you can learn to drive a car without actually driving a car? Virtual reality would allow us to hone and learn new skills in a completely different and immersive environment. People can be trained for jobs without actually requiring to physically travel and have the materials needed for their training. NASA, for example, uses Virtual Reality not just to teach the complicated and critical processes to astronauts but also impart muscle and visual memories of exercises. VR training is already being used in critical plants and industrial processes to save training time and improve health and safety of workers. For further reading refer to: https://spacecenter.org/how-nasa-uses-virtual-reality-to-train-astronauts/

 VR and Travel and Tourism

With Virtual reality, you can try your expedition before going on it. VR enables you to experience the locations rather than just swiping through pictures on social media. Today it is possible to climb the Everest or experience the journey to centre of a volcano safely in Virtual Reality, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBp2EWPjotk . Would we not need to travel if we have now got VR? Perhaps not true. I believe that VR would make the world and in fact our universe an even smaller place, increasing the urge to travel and visit lands that we have not been to. Clearly the television and then the internet has proven that the human need to travel increases with every advancement in communication technology. Hence with VR we believe that we would like to visit places as we start experiencing them from the safety of our homes which would increase tourism and travel. 

VR and Entertainment and Gaming :

In the development of the gaming and entertainment industry, virtual reality has already shown a lot of promise. Game development and video development using VR is enabling the users to enter an environment that seems to be real and experience it through a completely new dimension. They can interact and socialise in VR Games. Sony is poised to launch their next generation VR headset made for PlayStation5 into the market later this year (2021). It promises "the ultimate entertainment experience with dramatic leaps in performance and interactivity. Players will feel an even greater sense of presence and become even more immersed in their game worlds once they put on the new headset", https://blog.playstation.com/2021/02/23/introducing-the-next-generation-of-vr-on-playstation/#sf243317607

Virtual reality has the potential to transform the world for the better.

With the various advancements in VR technology, there is no better time to embrace and learn this technology. The younger Generation Z, has already embraced the immersive Virtual Technology through games and social media. VR applications will transform the way we create, design and experience everyday life. By 2050 our digital and Virtual Avatars maybe doing most of our work in the virtual wold (perhaps earning our salaries and incomes for us) allowing us to be free and enjoying life with our loved ones!

Virtual Reality and https://vracademi.com/

How do we impart design oriented education and build our own VR worlds to express, communicate and socialise? This is core mantra or objective of VRAcademi. At VRAcademi we teach the art of mindful design, digital art, immersive filmmaking and interactive 3D game design technology and Virtual Reality. Our courses are aimed at imparting VR Design education to children above the ages of 9 where they can build and share and live their Virtual Reality experiences. We want our future generation to not just consume but use the VR technology in making advancements to human life. At VRAcademi, It’s not about preparing your child for the future, It’s about your child creating the future! The future shaped by your children! For more information and to book a free demo class visit https://vracademi.com/.

This article has been written by Kaur Jaskirat, Ahuja Sonal and Lall Gursharn, April 2021.

Jaskirat is student intern at VRAcademi.com and is currently pursuing a Bachelors Degree in Electronics and Communication from Punjab Enginnering College, Chandigarh. Sonal is the CEO of VRAcademi and an Executive Director of Sunovatech, the immersive reality content creation and education company based in London and Dubai. Gursharn is a design and technology teacher at VRAcademi and working a primary school teacher in Solihull, UK.