37 Virtual Reality

Dr. Sudhanshu Joshi

epgp books

 

 

 

1.    Introduction

 

The term Virtual Reality is defined as a real or simulated environment in which a perceiver experiences telepresence. Conceptually, VR is an advanced form of visualization it is also known by other names including immersive multimedia or computer- simulated reality. In simple words, it is a computer technology that replicates an environment (real and imagined) and simulates user’s physical presence and environment to allow for user interaction. Virtual realities artificially create sensory experience, which can include sight, touch, hearing, and smell. Then, why is VR important to the user interface of the ordinary shopping mall? It can improve the naturalness of the user interface, possibly increasing the customer satisfaction. Especially, the Internet environment of most of the ordinary shopping malls is strictly confined by two-dimensional graphic displays, limiting the naturalness customers can feel in a real shopping environment, and possibly degrading the customer satisfaction. VR can be considered as a meaningful technology for complementing the user interfaces in this respect (Wann & Mon-Williams, 1996). Exhibit I: Virtual Reality based business Applications

Many studies dealing with VR are technical in focus, studying how computer and interface technology can be enhanced for improved human interaction. Little is reported about information systems areas, where VR can be applied effectively to improve the performance of target information systems. However, Walsh (2001, 2002) and Walsh and Pawlowski (2002) stated that VR could address limitations of web-based E-commerce, expanding the range of E-commerce possibilities. Three important characteristics of VR are immersion, interactivity, and presence (Bhatt, 2004; Walsh, 2002). Immersion can be seen as the extent to which the subject’s senses are isolated from the real world and are stimulated by the virtual world (Witmer & Singer, 1998). Interactivity refers to the extent to which users can participate in modifying the form and content of a VR environment in real time (Steuer, 1992). Presence is defined as ‘‘the subjective experience of being in one place or environment, even though one is physically situated in another (Witmer & Singer, 1998)’’. Steuer (1995) argues for the use of ‘telepresence’ to describe the extent to which presence is felt in the mediated environment. Especially, Bhatt (2004) showed that the web site is required to create a balance between interactivity, immersion, and presence (connectivity). For example, a dot-com competing in the fashion industry may need to develop quite a different kind of web site than a dot-com competing in the financial industry. In the fashion industry, immersion is more critical, while in the financial industry, presence is far more important.

 

During the last two decades, VR has been used extensively on various fields of industry(Cruz-Neira, Sandin, Defanti, Kenyon, & Hart, 1992; Feiner, Maclntyne, & Sellgmann, 1993; Karwowski, Chase, Gaddie, Lee, & Jang, 1997; Ressler & Trefzger, 1997; Sanna, Zunino, & Lamberti, 2004; Stickland, Hodges, North, & Weghorst, 1997). Originally, it was essential to have a device of great ingenuity and a speedy computer system for making exceptional VR. However, in the age of the Internet where such hardware for activating VR is meaningless in terms of cost and technology, VR has been approached from 3D graphical displays (Pratt et al., 1995). By the close of 1995, high-end desktop machines enhanced with graphic accelerators were delivering 3D graphic performance at 10% of the capital cost that would have been incurred in 1990 (Wann & Mon-Williams, 1996). As another important example for VR application in the PC environment, the VRFlow (vrflow.oulu.fi) project of Oulu University in Finland (Oinas-Kukkonen et al., 1998) is worthy of being introduced. This project was aimed at facilitating the VR application on the Internet environment. It has been successfully applied to many E-commerce cases, all of which are working on the Internet. The huge size of VR files was reduced to a manageable one without loss of vividness or immersion.

 

36.1. User Interface and Virtual Reality

 

User interface is defined as an observable two-way exchange of symbols and actions between human and computer in the case of the Internet environment (Hartson & Hix, 1989, p. 8). In other words, user interface usually indicates a computer program or environment that displays options on the screen as icons, i.e., picture symbols, by which users enter commands by selecting an icon (Gonzalez & Kasper, 1997). In the situation of the shopping mall, user interface is usually regarded as a form of human– computer communication or interaction (Foley & van Dam, 1982), supporting the mechanics of the human–computer interaction and facilitating the broader notion of a dialogue between human and computer. Therefore, the user interface design is one of the critical factors in the success of a shopping mall. Therefore, designing the user interface of the shopping mall can be generally translated into a problem of web site design whose goal is to build a hierarchy of menus and pages that feels natural and well-structured to the users, and does not interfere with their use of the web site or mislead them (Schneiderman, 1998). Although the web site has become commercialized and extensively used for E-commerce applications after 1995, the basic principles for web site design in a general sense can still be helped by knowledge from other user-interface design domains such as menu systems and hypertext (Isakowitz, Stohr, &Balasubramanian, 1995; Koved & Schneiderman, 1986; Nielsen, 1995; Norman, 1991; Rivlin, Rotafogo, & Schneiderman, 1994), the theoretical framework of the Objects/Actions Interface (OAI) Model (Schneiderman & Kearsley, 1989), and the results from information retrieval research (Belkin & Croft, 1992; Marchionini, 1995). Huizingh (2000) comments that a web site is generically composed of content and design. The content of a web site has features like information, transaction, entertainment, and advanced site. The design of a web site includes navigation structure, search function, protected content, quality of structure, image, and presentation style. Especially, he notes that there are two kinds of web structure, hierarchical and network structures, and that the best web site structure will be somewhere between a tree and a full network.

 

36.2. Virtual Reality in Business

 

Virtual reality is being used in a number of ways by the business community which include:

  1. Virtual tours of a business environment
  2. Training of new employees
  3. 360 view of a product

 

Many businesses have embraced virtual reality as a cost effective way of developing a product or service. For example it enables them to test a prototype without having to develop several versions of this which can be time consuming and expensive. Also, it is a good way of detecting design problems at an early stage which can then be dealt with sooner rather than later.

 

Progress Check Points

 

Question 1: Explain the Scope and applications of VR in commercial and non-commercial activities

Question 2: What are the possible challenges that VR is facing in recent times

you can view video on Virtual Reality

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