VR / AR / MR / XR concepts?
The technology is developing rapidly, and as a natural consequence, every day our life involves new and useful devices. AR / VR headsets are one of the increasingly popular and increasingly common devices. In addition to custom headset devices, there are also many AR / VR games and applications that we can use from our smartphones, where we interact extensively every day. The number of these applications is increasing day by day.
Along with these devices, our life has begun to include new concepts. Especially in recent times we see abbreviations of VR / AR / MR / XR in most places and we hear from many people in our circle. However, some people use these concepts randomly and unknowingly. These abbreviations, which have started to be widely used, can therefore bring about some confusion of meanings.
The concept of "virtuality continuum" has been developed so that the interaction between real world and virtual environments produced using computer graphics can be clearly demonstrated. This concept can be thought of as a spectrum. Thus, one end of the spectrum is the real world, and the other end is the virtual world of computer graphics. All "reality" applications are also in this range.
The traditionally accepted view for the concept of Virtual Reality (VR) can be defined as an environment in which a participating observer fully enters and interacts with a synthetic world produced by computer graphics. The virtual worlds created using computers in this way may have been reproduced in a realistic environment, as well as completely fictional and unrealistic.
The difference between VR and AR arises here. The user perceives an entirely virtual environment generated by computers with the help of improved optical systems in VR applications. But in AR applications, the user continues to perceive this real world as we live in, not a virtual world, even though the user wears glasses again. In this way, some computer graphics that are not found in the real world are perceived by the user. Moreover, interaction with these visual objects can be achieved.
Here is another difference. Similar to AR applications, there is a concept in the literature. AV applications can be thought of as the opposite of AR applications. In this case, objects found in the real world can be transferred to a virtual environment created by computer graphics. That is, if the user perceives the real world, the addition of computer graphics to this perception is defined as AR. Conversely, when the user perceives the detection in a virtual environment consisting of computer graphics, the systems formed by including real objects in that world are called AV. All of these can be described on the cross-axis of the concept of "virtuality continuum".
All of the perceptions in this "virtuality continuum" spectrum are either in the real world or in a completely virtual reality. Among these two concepts, all the sensing systems in which these concepts are used at specific ratios are called Mixed Reality.
Initially different applications were developed for different purposes. As a result, the developed applications are named according to their use. However, in recent years it has been shifting towards a single name for the elimination of this complexity. In recent years, the Cross Reality (XR) roof has begun to be used to express the work in these areas in general. XR is an umbrella term, encompassing Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) applications. In the near future, many products addressing this area seem likely to be combined under the Cross Reality (XR) framework.