The present and future of Virtual Technology

Currently, the Virtual Reality industry has experienced a boost with the first batch of Oculus Rift headsets expected to be sold on the first quarter of 2016. Significant investors in this technology such as Facebook has bought over the Oculus Rift model for a generous sum of $2 Billion, but the potential for this technology is unprecedented and make no mistake Facebook’s return of investment could be a heck of a lot more than they forecast it to be.

Besides being predicted to be a revolutionary gaming platform in the thriving gaming industry, the uses of a virtual technology headset can be extensive. Medical students can reenact realistic surgeries for their training and NASA space cadets can utilize this technology as a spacecraft simulator. The point is this virtual world technology has the ability to transcend beyond creating an idealistic fantasy for us to experience in. This technology can have real life applications that provide very rich benefits for everyone.

By highlighting the potential benefits, let’s focus on the current progress of virtual technology and the challenges it faces.

To begin, programming and managing virtual technology is certainly not an easy walk in the park. Basic programmings required include Domain-Specific Programming Language (DSL), Visual Programming Language (VSL), C++ Programming and Object-Oriented Programming. It seems fundamentally related to video game programming, but to put on the headset and have motion detecting sensors emit visuals whenever your head turns, a virtual reality experience it’s quite a different thing.

The problems with the virtual reality headset would be first of all the tracking of head movements. Whenever the user’s head turns, the virtual image has to change correspondingly in order to show the user a correct image for the new head position, just as how we view things in the real-world whenever we look around. This is required for the virtual images to seem realistic to the user.

However, the quick head motion makes it rather difficult for virtual images to remain in fixed positions. As the images are updated once a frame, it makes 360-degree viewing easily distorted and lagged if head movements are too quick for motion sensors to detect. The virtual images have to be at the right place at every frame relative to the head movements in order for it to seem real. Furthermore, the technology does not have translation which is the concise reporting of the different head movement directions to the system.

Another problem is latency. Latency is the delay between head movement and the corresponding virtual world image that the user sees. Anomalies in the virtual reality occur due to latency when the virtual images are shown too quick or too slow to the user. The severity of the anomaly is dependent on how fast the head motions are. The faster your head moves, the more distorted your view will be which destroys the illusion of the virtual reality.

Lastly, the lack of pixels in the current virtual reality image will definitely remove much authenticity. To give users an immersive presence in the virtual world, you need to have well pixilated graphical images. Currently, the prototypes display per-degree pixel densities of a 1K x 1K which the density is one-seventh that of a big screen TV. In terms of resolution, it’s found that 1080p seems to be enough to create a virtual presence but developers are looking to expand to 1440p, or even 2160p.

As of now based on the prototype that was featured on the video, it seems we are faring decently in revamping a whole new virtual experience for people. With sales of the Oculus Rift Headset commencing early next year, it would seem everyone would be curious on the practicality of this product and whether there is a viable use for virtual technology in the future.