A Report on the presentation by W.Industries.

© Chris Hand, 1991

A DEFINITION OF VIRTUAL REALITY

Terry Rowley began the presentation by talking about our senses and how we use them to interact with our immediate environment. He followed this with a definition of VR as being the substitution of sensory inputs. He added that this must be coherent to avoid sickness. The substitution of sensory inputs may be performed in many ways; visually, film or video are familiar media, while through sound, the use of headphones to create a sound image in space is common. Technology has also become available to provide input to the sense of touch, through pneumatic tactile gloves and force-feedback techniques (e.g. the steering wheel on a driving simulator).

Some difficulties arise with the sense of touch, however. For example how do we simulate the feeling of wetness when dipping our fingers into virtual water? The simulation of temperature is also a problem: how do we make the temperature of the simulated water feel right? Other senses are altogether more problematic. Simulation of smells, although quite possible, is difficult in an interactive environment due to the need to dispose of smells that are no longer applicable in the current situation. More research needs to be done on smell – for example discovering the Primary Elements of smell (analogous to Red, Green and Blue in light) to allow us to create any smell necessary. The sense of taste may also be hard to simulate, but even so: since we usually swallow what we taste, would we actually want to taste a virtual object?