What is the Definition & Meaning of Virtual Reality or VR?
Recently updated on July 4th, 2023 at 01:02 am
When people mentioned about virtual reality or VR, does the image of people wearing a helmet covering their eyes comes into your mind? I think most of us do. Is that enough to explain what is VR is all about? In this article, we will try our best to explain on the definition and meaning of virtual reality to you…
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Definition and Meaning of VR in Dictionary
There are many ways on how to define the meaning of “Virtual Reality” aka VR. Let’s say if we break it down into two different words first. We think most of us here must have know what “Reality” means. “Reality” means the state of things as they actually exist or have substance.
How about “Virtual”? From the computing perspective, “Virtual” is the state where the object or thing is not physically exist as such but made by software to appear to do so.
Now, let’s combine the two words together…
From the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, the definition of “virtual reality” is images and sounds created by a computer that seem almost real to the user, who can interact with them by using sensors.
Below is how to pronounce the word “virtual reality” correctly…
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And if we looked inside Dictionary.com, VR means “a realistic and immersive computer simulation of a three-dimensional environment, created using interactive software and hardware, and experienced or controlled by movement of the body“.
Scientific Definitions of Virtual Reality
Now, let’s take a look on how scientists define the VR term. From the American Heritage Science Dictionary, they defined Virtual Reality as “A computer simulation of a real or imaginary world or scenario, in which a user may interact with simulated objects or living things in real time. More sophisticated virtual reality systems place sensors on the user’s body to sense movements that are then interpreted by the system as movements in the simulated world; binocular goggles are sometimes used to simulate the appearance of objects in three dimensions.“
What is the Synonym of Virtual Reality?
From the Thesaurus.com, the synonyms for “Virtual Reality” are “VR” (of course!), “cyberspace“, “simulated 3-D environment” and “artificial intelligence“.
Since nowadays AI is gaining a lot of popularity and have a life of its own, perhaps we need to take a look on whether we can still used AI as the synonym of VR. Maybe yes up to certain points…
Other VR Meaning & Definition…
Besides the definition from the dictionaries, the definition and meaning of “Virtual Reality” or popularly known as VR also can be the method or technique to simulate the feeling or experience of being inside a simulated or artificial environment which are usually generated by computer or machine.
Other popular names associated with VR are artificial reality, virtual environment, telepresence or can also be cyberspace. Furthermore, the term “metaverse” also gaining popularity lately and it always be linked together with virtual reality.
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Perhaps this video from Marketing Business Network can help in explaining the meaning of VR in a simple and easy for you to understand…
Who Created the Term “Virtual Reality”?
In year 1938, Antonin Artaud, a famous French writer and dramatist, used the term “la réalité virtuelle” in his collection of essays titled “Le Théâtre et son double“. He used the term to describe the illusory nature of characters and objects in the theatre.
Then, in 1958, the English translation of the book is published with title “The Theater and its Double“. It is where the term “virtual reality” is firstly used and published.
Fast forward to 1987, Jaron Lanier, the American computer scientist and also the founder of VPL Research, popularized the term “virtual reality” in the mainstream and media. According to VRS (Virtual Reality Society), this is done during the period of his intense research activity into this new form of technology.
Jaron also has come up with many kind of definitions of VR. There is one article from JBLoewen-Colón that compile 52 definitions of VR that comes from Jaron Lanier. Wowww!!!! No wonder Jaron Zepel Lanier is also popularly known as the “Father of VR“.
Among all of his definition, we love this one: “Hope for a medium that could convey dreaming.“
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How to Experience VR?
To experience VR, we need to use immersive multimedia technology since it can recreate the sensory experience such as sight, sound, smell, touch and perhaps taste. Once user is “teleported” inside the virtual environment (VE), they can have the capability to explore the world by moving around it.
The user might be able to manipulate the virtual objects or performs some actions in the virtual environment by using a special gloves that sometimes called as data gloves. The touch interaction or force feedback mechanism is usually called with the names haptics systems.
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But most of the time, the VR focus is more on the sense of sight or real-life viewing capability. Hence, to achieve this, most virtual reality system will produce the 3D images that emphasized on depth. This is done by letting each left and right eye to see the specially produced images for each of the eye respectively.
To experience this 3D effect, usually users are required to wear a special head-mounted display (HMD). The HMD is capable to display the 3D images on its lenses.
The ideal virtual reality is like the one shown in “The Matrix” or “The Thirteenth Floor” movie, where the subjects which are the people (or victims) is not aware that they are inside the simulated or virtual environment. Well, it might still be a long way to go to reach there…
Lastly…
We think that’s all that we can share on the definition and meaning of VR. So, in case you need to find the meaning and definition of VR, you can just pick the one that you think is suitable for you depending on the situation and context.
For more info about virtual reality, you can read it at:
1) “Virtual reality” from Wikipedia.
2) “What is Virtual Reality” from vrs.org.uk.
3) “How Virtual Reality Works” from HowStuffWorks.
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2 Responses
i need VR for money visualization
We too 🙂