Learning Virtual Reality


Book Description

Annotation Get an introduction to the technologies, tools, and techniques for programming virtual reality on the latest generation of desktop and mobile VR hardware. With this hands-on guide, you'll learn essential development and production concepts, including UI design, stereo rendering, 3D input, and programming VR applications for native desktop, mobile and the web. You don't have to be a game development wizard or have 3D graphics experience to get started. If you have basic programming skills and some familiarity with mobile development, this book will help you gain a working knowledge of virtual reality through clear and simple examples.




Virtual Reality'99


Book Description




Virtual Reality Technology


Book Description

A groundbreaking Virtual Reality textbook is now even better Virtual reality is a very powerful and compelling computer application by which humans can interface and interact with computer-generated environments in a way that mimics real life and engages all the senses. Although its most widely known application is in the entertainment industry, the real promise of virtual reality lies in such fields as medicine, engineering, oil exploration and the military, to name just a few. Through virtual reality scientists can triple the rate of oil discovery, pilots can dogfight numerically-superior "bandits," and surgeons can improve their skills on virtual (rather than real) patients. This Second Edition of the first comprehensive technical book on the subject of virtual reality provides updated and expanded coverage of the technology--where it originated, how it has evolved, and where it is going. The authors cover all of the latest innovations and applications that are making virtual reality more important than ever before, including: * Coverage on input and output interfaces including touch and force feedback * Computing architecture (with emphasis on the rendering pipeline and task distribution) * Object modeling (including physical and behavioral aspects) * Programming for virtual reality * An in-depth look at human factors issues, user performance, and * sensorial conflict aspects of VR * Traditional and emerging VR applications The new edition of Virtual Reality Technology is specifically designed for use as a textbook. Thus it includes definitions, review questions, and a Laboratory Manual with homework and programming assignments. The accompanying CD-ROM also contains video clips that reinforce the topics covered in the textbook. The Second Edition will serve as a state-of-the-art resource for both graduate and undergraduate students in engineering, computer science, and other disciplines. GRIGORE C. BURDEA is a professor at Rutgers-the State University of New Jersey, and author of the book Force and Touch Feedback for Virtual Reality, also published by Wiley. PHILIPPE COIFFET is a Director of Research at CNRS (French National Scientific Research Center) and Member of the National Academy of Technologies of France. He authored 20 books on Robotics and VR translated into several languages.




Unity Virtual Reality Projects


Book Description

If you are interested in Virtual Reality, want to learn how it works, and want to create your own VR experiences, this book is for you. We walk you through a series of tutorials and in-depth discussions using the Unity game engine.




Understanding Virtual Reality


Book Description

This book provides critical commentary on key issues around virtual reality, using media technology as a tool to challenge perspectives for learning and understanding cultural diversities. With a focus on empathy, embodiment and ethics, the book interrogates the use of immersive technologies for formal and informal educational contexts. Taking a critical approach to discourses around emerging technology and learning, the book presents the idea that a new literacy is emerging and an emphasis on media and technology is needed in the context of education to explore and experience cultural diversities. Employing a personal reflexive narrative, the chapters highlight key issues through research and interviews with leading practitioners in the field. Understanding Virtual Reality will be of great interest to academics and students interested in the effects of immersive realities on the education experience, and to anyone keen on exploring the paradigm shift from entertainment to education.




Immersive Virtual and Augmented Reality in Healthcare


Book Description

The book acts as a guide, taking the reader into the smart system domain and providing theoretical and practical knowledge along with case studies in smart healthcare. The book uses a blend of interdisciplinary approaches such as IoT, blockchain, augmented reality, and virtual reality for the implementation of cost-effective, real-time, and user-friendly solutions for healthcare problems. Immersive Virtual and Augmented Reality in Healthcare: An IoT and Blockchain Perspective presents the trends, best practices, techniques, developments, sensors, materials, and case studies that are using augmented and virtual reality environments with the state-of-the-art latest technologies like IoT, blockchain, and machine learning in the implementation of healthcare systems. The book focuses on the design and implementation of smart healthcare systems with major challenges to further explore more robust and efficient healthcare solutions in terms of low cost, faster algorithms, more sensitive IoT sensors, faster data communication, and real-time solutions for treatment. It discusses the use of virtual and augmented reality and how it can provide user-friendly and interactive communication within healthcare systems. Illustrated through case studies, the book conveys how different hospitals and healthcare equipment providers can adopt good practices found in the book to improve the performance/productivity of their staff and system. The content is rounded out by providing how IoT, blockchain, and artificial intelligence can provide the framework for designing and/or upgrading traditional healthcare systems by increasing security and data privacy. A valuable resource for engineers working with systems, the healthcare professionals involved in the design and development of healthcare devices and systems, researcher scholars, multidisciplinary scientists, students, and academics who are wishing to explore the use of virtual and augmented reality in new and existing healthcare systems.




Fantasies of Virtual Reality


Book Description

The fantasies that underpin common perceptions of Virtual Reality—and what we need to know about VR’s potential risks as well as its opportunities. Virtual reality is the next new frontier for Silicon Valley. Mark Zuckerberg, who has overseen Meta’s investment of billions into VR, pitches it as the next dominant computing paradigm. More than just a gaming technology, VR is top of mind for academics, tech reportage, and industry evangelists who all see the potential for VR to revolutionize fields such as education and health, as well as the way we work and communicate. But will VR achieve all this? In Fantasies of Virtual Reality, Marcus Carter and Ben Egliston strip bare the tech industry’s vision of a future dominated by immersive VR experiences, challenging the utopian promises of this technology’s potential. Carter and Egliston offer a critical account of VR in a variety of contexts, from gaming to human resources to policing and the military. They argue that while VR does hold significant potential, the overhyped expectations surrounding it, from achieving true empathetic understanding to transforming traditional education and office work, are often overstated and fraught with issues of privacy, control, and exclusion. What’s more, there is nothing truly virtual about virtual reality: VR is deeply entrenched in the material world, driven by tangible technological, economic, and social logics. An accessible introduction to this emerging technology, Fantasies of Virtual Reality is essential reading for anyone interested in what VR can really do—and what is just plain fantasy.




Storytelling for Virtual Reality


Book Description

Storytelling for Virtual Reality serves as a bridge between students of new media and professionals working between the emerging world of VR technology and the art form of classical storytelling. Rather than examining purely the technical, the text focuses on the narrative and how stories can best be structured, created, and then told in virtual immersive spaces. Author John Bucher examines the timeless principles of storytelling and how they are being applied, transformed, and transcended in Virtual Reality. Interviews, conversations, and case studies with both pioneers and innovators in VR storytelling are featured, including industry leaders at LucasFilm, 20th Century Fox, Oculus, Insomniac Games, and Google. For more information about story, Virtual Reality, this book, and its author, please visit StorytellingforVR.com




Multimedia and Virtual Reality


Book Description

This book is primarily a summary of research done over 10 years in multimedia and virtual reality, which fits within a wider interest of exploiting psychological theory to improve the process of designing interactive systems. The subject matter lies firmly within the field of HCI, with some cross-referencing to software engineering. Extending Sutcliffe's views on the design process to more complex interfaces that have evolved in recent years, this book: *introduces the background to multisensory user interfaces and surveys the design issues and previous HCI research in these areas; *explains the basic psychology for design of multisensory user interfaces, including the Interactive Cognitive Subsystems cognitive model; *describes elaborations of Norman's models of action for multimedia and VR, relates these models to the ICS cognitive model, and explains how the models can be applied to predict the design features necessary for successful interaction; *provides a design process from requirements, user and domain analysis, to design of representation in media or virtual worlds and facilities for user interaction therein; *covers usability evaluation for multisensory interfaces by extending existing well-known HCI approaches of heuristic evaluation and observational usability testing; and *presents two special application areas for multisensory interfaces: educational applications and virtual prototyping for design refinement.




Developing Virtual Reality Applications


Book Description

Virtual Reality systems enable organizations to cut costs and time, maintain financial and organizational control over the development process, digitally evaluate products before having them created, and allow for greater creative exploration. In this book, VR developers Alan Craig, William Sherman, and Jeffrey Will examine a comprehensive collection of current,unique, and foundational VR applications in a multitude of fields, such as business, science, medicine, art, entertainment, and public safety among others.An insider’s view of what works, what doesn’t work, and why, Developing Virtual Reality Applications explores core technical information and background theory as well as the evolution of key applications from their genesis to their most current form. Developmental techniques are cross-referenced between different applications linking information to describe overall VR trends and fundamental best practices. This synergy, coupled with the most up to date research being conducted, provides a hands-on guide for building applications, and an enhanced, panoramic view of VR development. Developing Virtual Reality Applications is an indispensable one-stop reference for anyone working in this burgeoning field. Dozens of detailed application descriptions provide practical ideas for VR development in ALL areas of interest! Development techniques are cross referenced between different application areas, providing fundamental best practices!