Level 1

Mod-01 : Keep it Virtual 101

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 Overview:
Index Let’s start making sense of what
Virtual Reality is and
understand how we arrived
here.

Content Page No.

-What are Virtual, Augmented & Extended 1
Realities?

-Principles, the science behind VR and 4

Challenges

-History and Introduction to Headsets 11

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 School of Innovation India from Facebook

What are
Virtual,
Augmented &
Extended
Realities?

Virtual reality (VR) is a computer-generated scenario that

simulates experience through senses and perception. The
immersive environment can be similar to the real world or it can
be fantastical, creating an experience not possible in ordinary
physical reality. Augmented reality systems may also be
considered a form of VR that layers virtual information over a live
camera feed into a headset or through a smartphone or tablet
device giving the user the ability to view three-dimensional
images.

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Extended Realities?

Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience

of a real-world environment whose elements are
"augmented" by computer-generated perceptual
information, sometimes across multiple sensory
modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic,
somatosensory, and olfactory. The overlaid sensory
information can be constructive (i.e. additive to the
natural environment) or destructive (i.e. masking of
the natural environment) and is seamlessly
interwoven with the physical world such that it is
perceived as an immersive aspect of the real
environment. In this way, augmented reality alters
one’s ongoing perception of a real world
environment, whereas virtual reality completely
replaces the user's real world environment with a
simulated one. Augmented reality is related to two
largely synonymous terms: mixed reality and
computer-mediated reality.

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Extended Realities?

Extended reality (XR) is a term referring to all real-

and-virtual combined environments and human-
machine interactions generated by computer
technology and wearables. It includes
representative forms such as augmented reality
(AR), augmented virtuality (AV) and virtual reality
(VR) and the areas interpolated among them. The
levels of virtuality range from partially sensory
inputs to immersive virtuality, also called VR.
XR is a superset which includes the entire spectrum
from "the complete real" to "the complete virtual" in
the concept of reality–virtuality continuum
introduced by Paul Milgram. Still, its connotation lies
in the extension of human experiences especially
relating to the senses of existence (represented by
VR) and the acquisition of cognition (represented by
AR). With the continuous development in human–
computer interactions, this connotation is still
evolving.

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Principles, the
science behind
VR and
Challenges

Virtual Reality is the way to trick our brain into thinking that it is in
some other environment. And there are a range of technologies
that contribute in making this trick immersion feel real.
Our brain has been exposed to this kind of trickery from ages and
we observe this happening to us from time to time even without
requiring the Head Mounted Displays. And not just vision, but all
our senses collectively or independently help us create that
illusion of immersion. We are known to fall into these kind of
immersions every now and then while:

• Playing Video Games

• Reading a Book
• Watching a Movie
• Listening to Music
• Telephonic Conversations

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 Principles, the science behind VR School of Innovation India from Facebook

and Challenges

But these cannot be exactly referred to as Virtual Reality, the

factors that help create a complete Virtual Reality experience
include:

-Immersion, as explained above is the trick to get our brain to

visualize itself in an environment that it is not currently in.

-Teleportation, is the ability of moving across various

environments without having the need to leave your premise.
Virtual Reality allows you to change your physical surrounding
without moving even an inch from your position.

-Interaction, when one is able to interact with this new

environment that one is looking at, the power of the
immersion amplifies into making the belief of this Virtual
Reality to be an actual Reality more concrete.

-Presence, is the ability to feel that one is actually at the place

that one sees one is in.

-Sensory feedback, It is easy to break the illusion of Virtual

Reality if our brain sees something but our other senses reject
that notion and rebel against it. But when our senses
complement to the visual feedback that it is receiving, it
creates an absolute Virtual Reality.

Technological advances that helped shape Virtual Reality:

Virtual Reality is not a direct result of the technology being
dedicatedly developed for the intended purpose, but are
borrowed from a range of other diverse resources to make it
possible. For example, most of the sensors like gyroscopes and
motion sensors that are used to track the head orientation
and body positions in a VR headset were primarily developed
for smartphones.
Small HD screens used initially to make the display for
smartphones are used as displays in a Virtual Reality headset.

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 Principles, the science behind VR School of Innovation India from Facebook

and Challenges

Here is a list of few technical advances that has made Virtual

Reality possible:

-Haptics: Haptics is the basic involvement of touch as a

feedback to the senses for confirming the belief of whatever
they are seeing is actually there.

-3D Display: 3D or 3 dimensional display is the technology that

helps build this illusion of depth. To present stereoscopic
images and films, two images are projected superimposed
onto the same screen or display through different polarizing
filters. The viewer wears low-cost eyeglasses which contain a
pair of different polarizing filters. As each filter passes only
that light which is similarly polarized and blocks the light
polarized in the opposite direction, each eye sees a different
image. This is used to produce a three-dimensional effect by
projecting the same scene into both eyes, but depicted from
slightly different perspectives.The display mechanisms that
help achieve 3D display are:

•Stereoscopy: Stereoscopy (also called stereoscopics, or

stereo imaging) is a technique for creating or
enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by means
of stereopsis for binocular vision.

•Polarization: A polarized 3D system uses polarization

glasses to create the illusion of three-dimensional
images by restricting the light that reaches each eye
(an example of stereoscopy).

(Circularly polarized 3D glasses in front of an LCD tablet with a quarter-

wave retarder on top of it; the λ/4 plate at 45° produces a definite
handedness, which is transmitted by the left filter but blocked by the right
filter.)

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and Challenges

•Alternate Frame Rendering: Alternate Frame Rendering

(AFR) is a technique of graphics rendering in personal
computers which combines the work output of two or
more graphics processing units (GPU) for a single
monitor, in order to improve image quality, or to
accelerate the rendering performance. The technique is
that one graphics processing unit computes all the odd
video frames, the other renders the even frames.

-360 Degree View: The ability of constructing displays that

show a complete 360 degree environment either by taking an
individual into an environment which has displays surrounding
in all directions or by rendering the images on the displays
placed in front of eyes which moves as quickly and rapidly
with the moving chassis of the display as and when the head
rotates.

-Motion and Orientation: The ability of measuring motion and

direction in space and translating it into a Virtual environment
is critical for creating the illusion of the virtual reality. And this
ability of the HMDs to respond correctly to the user’s actions
in the virtual environment, is achieved by the help of these
sensors:

•Accelerometer: An accelerometer is an instrument used

to measure acceleration of a moving or a vibrating
body and is therefore used in VR devices to measure
the acceleration along a particular axis.

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 Principles, the science behind VR School of Innovation India from Facebook

and Challenges

The accelerometer is used in our smartphones for

instance to let the device know whether the user has
held the device in landscape or portrait mode. And
similarly the primary function of the accelerometers in
our VR device is also to tell the direction the user is
facing.

•Gyroscope: A gyroscope is a device used to measure

orientation. The device consists of a wheel or disc
mounted so that it can spin rapidly about an axis which
itself is free to alter in any direction. The orientation of
the axis is not affected by tilting of the mounting, so
gyroscopes can be used to provide stability or maintain
a reference direction in navigation systems, automatic
pilots, and stabilizers.

•Magnetometer: A magnetometer is a device used to

measure magnetic forces, usually Earth’s magnetism
and thus tell the direction that it is facing. A compass is
a simple type of magnetometer, one that measures the
direction of an ambient magnetic field.

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 Principles, the science behind VR School of Innovation India from Facebook

and Challenges

-Depth Sensing: As the name suggests, depth sensing is the

ability of a computing system to measure depth of the real
environment. The main components that make it possible are
an IR (Infra-Red) projector and an IR Camera. An IR projector
emits many dots in the surrounding in its line of sight and the
IR camera then sees and understand these dots and the
processors calibrate the position of the object according to
the shape, size and density of these dots.

-Computer Graphics: This is probably the most critical topic in

Virtual Reality. Although VR has been in existence through
many decades but only recently with increasing portable
computing power being easily accessible, a lot of quality work
in Computer Graphics has been made possible, that in turn
enables the kind of VR that we experience today.

-Light Field Camera: A light field camera, also known as

plenoptic camera, captures information about the light field
emanating from a scene; that is, the intensity of light in a
scene, and also the direction that the light rays are traveling in
space. This contrasts with a conventional camera, which
records only light intensity. One type of light field camera uses
an array of micro-lenses placed in front of an otherwise
conventional image sensor to sense intensity, color, and
directional information. Multi-camera arrays are another type
of light field camera. Holograms are a type of film-based light
field image.

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 Principles, the science behind VR School of Innovation India from Facebook

and Challenges

Challenges

Although a good amount of technology and learnings have

gone into achieving the current state of Virtual Reality but
there are some significant factors which can easily deter the
quality of experience and thus breaking the illusion of VR. The
challenge is to keep all these factors in check while
progressing the technology like:

-Realistic sense
-No nausea
-Depth
-Non interfering Sensors
-Ergonomics
-Immersion
-Presence
-Teleportation
-Movements
-Interactions

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 School of Innovation India from Facebook

History and
Introduction to
Headsets

The exact origins of virtual reality are disputed, partly because

of how difficult it has been to formulate a definition for the
concept of an alternative existence. Elements of virtual reality
appeared as early as the 1860s.

1860s: French avant-garde playwright Antonin Artaud took

the view that illusion was not distinct from reality, advocating
that spectators at a play should suspend disbelief and regard
the drama on stage as reality. The first references to the more
modern concept of virtual reality came from science fiction.

1935: Stanley G. Weinbaum's 1935 short story "Pygmalion's

Spectacles" describes a goggle-based virtual reality system
with holographic recording of fictional experiences, including
smell and touch.

1962: Morton Heilig wrote in the 1950s of an "Experience

Theatre" that could encompass all the senses in an effective
manner, thus drawing the viewer into the onscreen activity. He
built a prototype of his vision dubbed the Sensorama in 1962,
along with five short films to be displayed in it while engaging
multiple senses (sight, sound, smell, and touch). Predating
digital computing, the Sensorama was a mechanical device.

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History and Introduction to Headsets

1968: Ivan Sutherland,

with the help of his
student Bob Sproull,
created what was widely
considered to be the first
head-mounted display
(HMD) system for use in
immersive simulation
applications. It was
primitive both in terms
of user interface and
realism, and the HMD to
be worn by the user was
so heavy that it had to
be suspended from the
ceiling. The graphics
comprising the virtual
environment were
simple wire-frame model
rooms. The formidable
appearance of the
device inspired its name, (Image of the Sensorama, released in the the 1950s)

The Sword of Damocles.

1978: The Aspen

Movie Map was
created at the MIT.
The program was a
crude virtual
simulation of Aspen,
Colorado in which
users could wander
the streets in one of
the three modes:
summer, winter, and
polygons.

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History and Introduction to Headsets

1980s: The term "virtual reality" was popularized by Jaron

Lanier, one of the modern pioneers of the field. Lanier had
founded the company VPL Research in 1985. VPL Research
has developed several VR devices like the Data Glove, the Eye
Phone, and the Audio Sphere. VPL licensed the Data Glove
technology to Mattel, which used it to make an accessory
known as the Power Glove. While the Power Glove was hard
to use and not popular, at US$75, it was an early affordable
VR device.

1988: Star Trek - The Next Generation introduces “The

Holodeck”.

1991: Carolina Cruz-Neira, Daniel J. Sandin

and Thomas A. DeFanti from the Electronic
Visualization Laboratory created the first
cubic immersive room, The Cave. Developed
as Cruz-Neira's PhD thesis, it involved a
multi-projected environment, similar to the
holodeck, allowing people to see their own
bodies in relation to others in the room.

1993: Sega announces SegaVR prototype

for Mega Drive console. It used LCD
(A VPL Research DataSuit, a full-
screens in the visor, stereo headphones, measuringbody outfit with sensors for
the movement of arms,
and inertial sensors that allowed the 1989. Displayed at the Nissho Iwai
legs, and trunk. Developed circa

showroom in Tokyo.)
system to track and react to the
movements of the user's head. In the same year, Virtuality launched
and went on to become the first mass-produced, networked,
multiplayer VR entertainment system. It was released in many
countries, including a dedicated VR arcade at Embarcadero Center
in San Francisco. Costing up to $73,000 per multi-pod Virtuality
system, they featured headsets and exoskeleton gloves that gave
one of the first "immersive" VR experiences. Antonio Medina, a MIT
graduate and NASA scientist, designed a virtual reality system to
"drive" Mars rovers from Earth in apparent real time despite the
substantial delay of Mars-Earth-Mars signals.
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History and Introduction to Headsets

1995: The Virtual Boy was created by Nintendo and was

released in Japan and North America. Also in 1995, a group in
Seattle created public demonstrations of a "CAVE-like" 270
degree immersive projection room called the Virtual
Environment Theater, produced by entrepreneurs Chet Dagit
and Bob Jacobson.

1999: The Witchkowski’s brothers releases “The Matrix”.

2003: Linden Labs releases “Second Life”.

2007: Google introduced Street View, a service that shows

panoramic views of an increasing number of worldwide
positions such as roads, indoor buildings and rural areas. It
also features a stereoscopic 3D mode, introduced in 2010.

2010: Palmer Luckey designed the first prototype of the

Oculus Rift. This prototype, built on a shell of another virtual
reality headset, was only capable of rotational tracking.
However, it boasted a 90-degree field of vision that was
previously unseen in the consumer market at the time. This
initial design would later serve as a basis from which the later
designs came.

(A 2013 developer version of Oculus Rift from Oculus VR)

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History and Introduction to Headsets

2013: Valve discovered and freely shared the breakthrough of

low-persistence displays which make lag-free and smear-free
display of VR content possible. This was adopted by Oculus
and was used in all their future headsets.

In early 2014, Valve showed off their SteamSight prototype,

the precursor to both consumer headsets released in 2016. It
shared major features with the consumer headsets including
separate 1K displays per eye, low persistence, positional
tracking over a large area, and fresnel lenses.

2014: Facebook purchased Oculus VR for $2 billion. This

purchase occurred before any of the devices ordered through
Oculus' 2012 Kickstarter had shipped. In that same month,
Sony announced Project Morpheus (its code name for
PlayStation VR), a virtual reality headset for the PlayStation 4
video game console. Google announces Cardboard, a do-it-
yourself stereoscopic viewer for smartphones. The user places
their smartphone in the cardboard holder, which they wear on
their head.

2015: The Kickstarter campaign for Gloveone, a pair of gloves

providing motion tracking and haptic feedback, was
successfully funded, with over $150,000 in contributions. HTC
and Valve Corporation announced the virtual reality headset
HTC Vive and controllers. The set included tracking
technology called Lighthouse, which utilized wall-mounted
"base stations" for positional tracking using infrared light.

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History and Introduction to Headsets

2018: Steven Spielberg releases “Ready Player One” based on

the book “Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline that came out in
2011. 2018 also saw release of a number of standalone
headsets like Oculus Go, Vive Focus, Lenovo Mirage, etc. that
does not require an additional device like a Mobile Phone or a
dedicated computer to run VR.

(Still form Ready Player One)

(Oculus GO from Facebook)

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References

•-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-vUixm-
YlQ&list=PL_ezWOhnpakMojiJGm-YiCz5zr4GpuLG_&index=2

•-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality

•-https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-
rift-step-into-the-game

•-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oculus_Rift

•-https://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2014/03/25/
•facebook-buys-oculus-virtual-reality-gaming-startup-for-2-
billion/#743169392498

•-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality

•-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_reality

•-https://jahya.net/blog/how-depth-sensor-works-in-5-
minutes/

•-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-field_camera

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