If we see the trend among emerging technologies in
the last five years, VR and AR are being fast adopted in the industrial world,
which includes major areas of entertainment, health care, tourism and
education. Indeed VR and AR are the technologies of the future, and to give a
boost to their career, young professionals should quickly get into VR field by
learning-related skills through on-line and other related training programs. By
2024, VR and AR technologies will be impacting our lives in a big way. Many
people foresee a future where they will be able to create their own realities
and even go back in time. For instance, they could be sitting
in their homes in India, can put on a Head-Mounted Display (
HMD) headgear and enjoy a soccer or cricket match, being
played in England or Australia. One could put on a VR headgear and realize
the holographic image of a political leader or film actor or friend and chat
with him/her as a real person, but you cannot touch and feel the person.
Likewise, you could be flying across snow-clad mountains of Himalayas of India
or snow-covered beautiful peaks of Switzerland or Canada. You could be flying
along the great canyon of USA or having an underwater adventure with sea
animals. In the near future, people could simulate any environment and feel as
if they were actually there.
Although by 2019, the average person may not
have had a chance to experience VR or AR, yet most of them can imagine VR and
AR as part of their future life. The ideas of VR and AR are quite exciting,
where within the comforts of your own place; you can put on HMD headgear and be
anywhere experiencing anything, and chatting with anyone. You could fly across
the oceans, deserts or rain forest, to explore other countries. VR and AR
have no boundaries since you could travel through entire solar systems and quickly
moving from Moon to Mars or any other planet. These are the kinds of VR and AR
capabilities the public has long been promised by the creators and
promoters of VR. Most people are very excited about the full-fledged implementation
of VR and its easy availability to all. The present generation has been
watching, entertainment movies like Star Trek, Avatar, TV show, and reading
science fiction books. These all have been giving us great hope about VR.
Lately, VR has been used for recreations of environment, magic and
imagination.
It last few years, Computing, AI and Manufacturing
Technologies have advanced very rapidly and will soon enable people to
travel back in time and rediscover many exciting aspects of their lives. Within
the next 10 years, VR and AR will bring many changes to the way we work,
the way we imagine, how we are entertained, and how we communicate with others.
To incorporate these functionalities in VR and AR systems, the market requires,
computer software programmers, AI experts, digital photographers, scene
creators, and experts in computer simulation techniques, fiction
story writers, dreamers, innovators, and magic makers. Indeed VR and
AR gives hope for the creation of new jobs for people with an appropriate
skillset
Virtual Reality (VR). VR is the computer-generated
simulation of a three-dimensional image environment, created with software and
presented to the user in such a way that the user tends to believe it as a real
environment. VR is primarily experienced through the user‘s senses of
seeing and hearing for which he/she wears an HMD headset or Gloves fitted
with sensors. VR offers you a complete immersion
experience that takes you away from the physical world. Using VR devices such
as HTC Vive, Oculus Rift or Google Cardboard, the viewer can be made
to fly across a number of real-world and imagined environments. It could be on
the ground ( Desert, Jungle, Mountains, underwater
).
Augmented Reality (AR). AR adds digital objects as an
overlay to a (real world) live view by using the camera or a smartphone.
AR keeps the real-world central but enhances it with other digital details,
Mixed Reality (MR). MR combines elements of both AR,
real-world (physical) and Digital objects ( digitally
simulated). It makes both types of elements interplay to create an easily
realizable environment. With MR you can play a video game, grab your
bat to hit the ball or punch an imaginary character in a boxing ring. In MR,
you interact with and manipulate both physical and virtual environments, using
next-generation of computing, sensing and imaging technologies. MR allows you
to see and immerse yourself in the world around you and even as you interact
with a virtual environment using your own hands but without removing your
headset.
History
and Progress of VR. VR
is not very latest concept since its basic
concept goes back to mid-1930s when science fiction
writers, inventors, research scholars and thinkers have imagined fugue virtual
environment where one could go back or ahead of time with the help
of creative art and simulating machines In the field
of entertainment and gaming, VR has been there for many years, but its
real impact on our life is being felt only after 2010. With the
enhanced capability of computing, imaging and sensors, VR technology can
generate realistic images, sounds, and other sensations and presenting
an exciting experience of the spectacular virtual world. VR Technology has
advanced rather faster and has a larger share of market-related to
entertainment, gaming, sports, education and exploration. It has a very bright
future and is being welcomed by all industries namely, entertainment, gaming, movies,
magic, health care, education, training, travel and tourism
VR Headsets. By natural instinct, human beings
like visual things for which good display technology is the answer to
differentiate between immersive VR systems and traditional user interfaces. For
this, HMD headset is the most important device for VR system. Major
players in VR include HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR
(PSVR). Using an HMD headset, you’ll experience a
computer-generated world of imagery and sounds in which you can manipulate
objects and move around using controllers which are suitably hooked on to the
PC / Laptop. There are many HMD headgears available, with varying
performance levels and prices. You may choose from Amazon or
Google store to match your need and affordable price. Some immersive headsets
are being offered by Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Samsung. Microsoft
has also entered the Arena of VR in a big way and so is Google.
Motion
controllers Nearly
all the larger headset manufacturers have released a set of motion
controllers compatible with their headsets.
Hand Tracking. Hand tracking enables headsets to track the user's
hands in VR without any additional hardware
Some basic terminologies. Some basic
technologies are briefly given below:
· Virtual world. This is
an imaginary scenario which is different from the real world. The resource used
to create this environment is a computer simulation of visual elements and
rendered with computer graphics. The designer of this environment sets the
rules ( Algorithm) for interactions with various simulated
elements. You could be anywhere on this globe but have access to
simulated (Near Real) scenario.
· Immersion. This is a new term referred to a situation where users
are placed in a virtual environment, taken away from local conditions. VR
headsets allow this by occupying their whole field of vision, while headphones
achieve similar results with sounds, Effectively user gets fully immersed in an imaginary
environment.
- Sensory
feedback. HMD
headgear tracks the position of the users within a given space so that the computer renders the changes of positions. Users moving their heads or bodies are given the illusion that they are moving in the real world.
Applications of VR Technologies The use of these
technologies is rapidly expanding from gaming to entertainment, to magic shows,
to movies, to medicine, to education, to training people.
·
Healthcare.
Training in surgical procedures, Physiotherapy
·
Films and
movies. This is a major application for entertainment
·
TV shows.
It includes movies, sports events to offer unique
experiences
·
Virtual
Travel. You could have virtual trips to a large type of Public Fair
or an art museum, or another country or even moon.
· Professional
Sports. Training programs like STRIVR
can help pro and amateur athletes to try out various options while
competing in a near-real ( simulated ) stadium
·
Exploration,
adventure and expeditions
· Video
games. VR offers new features to develops a video game. Some
devices simulate hands so that players can interact with objects: grabbing,
drawing, throwing, etc. User will be able to experience firing from a machine
gun, or a tank or an aircraft or a ship.
·
Education. VR
provides teachers with headsets virtually taking students outside of the
classroom to explore in first person the locations like Moon, Mars, Antarctica,
or study sea life by traversing the sea bed.
· Social apps. In this environment, users can sit at a virtual table and chat with
friends/relatives, share pictures. Facebook has already launched
its VR app of “Social Spaces” in May 2017. It is expected that by 2020 many
other technology companies like IBM, Microsoft, Samsung, Google, Microsoft,
Amazon will accelerate its pace of development in the field of VR.
· Vehicle simulators. Caterpillar
is already using computerized simulators for product development as well as
training purposes. It simulates all the aspect of driving a Caterpillar vehicle
with the addition of haptic feedback.
VR, AR
and MR is opening a new horizon for an adventure which could be
across a sea, or over a mountain or underwater or in deep
caves or thick jungles. It is particularly getting faster in the field of
education, research and training. For its accelerated growth it
needs experts from various fields, computer software, animation, digital
videography, theme and visualizers, story writers, even experts from
sociology and pomology to study the impact of VR product. .These technologies
offer great hope for many new jobs though requiring new skill set. VR
industry needs people who are critical thinkers, innovators and
visualizers. VR products would have elements of AI. It is therefore
right time for young professionals to get set and go for courses/ programs
being offered in the VR field. Those who have good competence in
skills related to VR/AR will have an edge over others and that will help
in growth and success in their career. Young
professionals of today must be ready with the required skills to grab the
coming opportunity.
Dr
Sarbjit Singh. Former Executive Director, Apeejay College of Engineering. Sohna-
Palwal Road, Gurgaon, Haryana, 122105, India
For more
information you may refer to my book --- “Career Challenges
during Global Uncertainty”, available on
-- www.amazon.com
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