Virtual Reality elements appeared in the early 1860s. French avant-garde director Antonin Artaud took the view that fiction is no different from reality, he advocated that the audience at a play should suspend disbelief and perceive the drama on stage as reality. In the 1950s, Morton Heilig wrote a "Theatre of Experience" that engages all the senses in an effective way, drawing the audience into the activity on the screen. He built a prototype dubbed the Sensorama in 1962.
The Sensorama is a mechanical device, Heilig also developed the patented Telesphere Mask in 1960. The application gives the viewer a complete sensation of reality, i.e. moving three-dimensional images which may be color, wide vision, sound, fragrance and a gentle breeze.
Around the same time, Douglas Engelbart was using computer screens as both input and output devices. In 1968, Ivan Sutherland, with the help of his student Bob Sproull, created what is considered the first virtual reality and head-mounted display (HMD).
The HMD that the user would be wearing was so heavy that it had to be braced up from the ceiling. A graphic consisting of a virtual environment in the form of a simple line model room. The device's extraordinary appearance was nicknamed the Sword of Damocles.
In 1978 the Aspen Movie Map was created. This program is a virtual simulation in which the user can roam the streets in one of three modes: Summer , Winter and Polygon. Summer and winter are based on photos from researchers.
The photo actually captures every possible movement through a grid of city streets, and polygons are a basic 3D model of a city. Atari founded a research laboratory for virtual reality in 1982, but the laboratory was closed after two years due to the 1983 North American video game accident. However, the employees it hired, such as Tom Zimmerman, Scott Fisher, Jaron Lanier and Brenda Laurel, continued to conduct research. and development of VR-related technologies.
In the 1980s the term virtual reality was popularized by Jaron Lanier, one of the pioneers of the modern field. Lanier had founded VPL Research company in 1985. VPL Research has developed several VR devices such as Data Glove, Eye Phone, and Audio Sphere
In 1991, Carolina Cruz-Neira, Daniel J. Sandin and Thomas A. DeFanti of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory created the first cubic immersive space, it involved a multi-projection environment, similar to a holodeck, that allowed people to see their own bodies in relation to those of other people. another in the room. In 1991, Sega announced the Sega VR headset for arcade games and the Mega Drive console.
It uses an LCD display in the visor, stereo headphones and inertial sensors that allow the system to track and react to the movement of the user's head. That same year, Virtuality launched and later became a mass-produced multiplayer VR entertainment system.
The game was released in many countries, including a dedicated VR arcade at the Embarcadero Center in San. In 2010, Palmer Luckey designed the first prototype of the Oculus Rift. This prototype, which is built on top of other virtual reality headset shells, is only capable of rotation tracking. However, it boasted a 90-degree field of view previously unseen in the consumer market at the time. This initial design then served as the basis from which later designs would come.
In 2013, Valve discovered and freely shared a low profile display breakthrough that made viewing lag free and load free of VR. On March 25, 2014, Facebook purchased Oculus VR. That same month, Sony announced Project Morpheus), a virtual reality headset for the PlayStation 4 video game console. Google announced Cardboard, a do-it-yourself stereoscopic display for smartphones. Users place their smartphone in a cardboard cradle, which they wear on their head.
In 2016 there were at least 230 companies developing VR-related products. Facebook has 400 employees focused on VR development; Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Sony and Samsung have all dedicated AR and VR groups.
