virtual reality Quick reference
A Dictionary of Marketing (4 ed.)
... reality A lifelike artificial environment with various online applications such as computer games, simulations for training purposes (for airline pilots, for example), virtual tours, animations, architectural design, and advanced advertising...
virtual reality Quick reference
A Dictionary of Computer Science (7 ed.)
... reality ( VR ) The creation and experience of environments. The central objective is to place the participant in an environment that is not normally or easily experienced. Augmented reality is similar to virtual reality but the virtual image is superimposed on a real-world image often using see-through head-mounted displays...
virtual reality Quick reference
A Dictionary of the Internet (4 ed.)
... reality The combination of animation, sound, and graphics which simulate some physical location such as a supermarket or the inside of a passenger aircraft. A typical use for this technology would be for an online supermarket where the customer walks around the shelves of the supermarket by clicking a mouse. See Virtual Reality Modeling Language...
virtual reality Quick reference
World Encyclopedia
... reality Term that has been used for computer graphics that simulate a three-dimensional environment that users can explore as if it were real. A virtual reality system can allow an architect to see what the inside of a building will look like before construction begins. Computer images are produced using an architect's drawings of the building. Virtual reality technology has influenced the development of the video game ...
Virtual Reality Reference library
Michael Heim
Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (2 ed.)
... Reality . Virtual reality is a synthetic technology combining three-dimensional video, audio, and other sensory components to achieve a sense of immersion in an interactive, computer-generated environment. Virtual reality also appears under the title virtual environments or virtual worlds. Contemporary usage tends to prefer the term virtuality , which avoids the paradoxes and overpromise that many see in the legacy of virtual reality proper. Popular culture now uses the term virtual in a weak sense that refers loosely to any kind of computer-mediated...
Virtual Reality Reference library
Encyclopedia of Aesthetics
... Reality Virtual Reality is a synthetic technology combining three-dimensional video, audio, and other sensory components to achieve a sense of immersion in an interactive, computer-generated environment. Virtual Reality also appears under the title Virtual Environments or Virtual Worlds. Popular culture now uses the terms virtual and virtual reality in a weak sense that refers loosely to any kind of computer-mediated experience or even to any kind of imaginative experience, but the stronger usage of the term implies the application of immersion...
virtual reality Quick reference
A Dictionary of Human Geography
... reality Visual, interactive, computer-generated environments in which the user can move around and explore. Virtual reality presently takes two forms. The first is totally immersive environments in which users wear head-mounted goggles to view a stereoscopic virtual world. When the user moves, the virtual world is continuously updated providing the illusion that (s)he is fully immersed in a 3D, interactive space. The second form is screen-based and allows the user to interact with a responsive ‘game-space’. Both forms have three essential attributes: they...
virtual reality Quick reference
A Dictionary of Media and Communication (3 ed.)
... reality 1. An interface that allows a person to interact directly with otherwise intangible constructs in a three-dimensional computer-generated world. Typically a user would wear a head-mounted display, headphones, and force-feedback gloves. 2. A medium that creates a sense of virtual presence through simultaneous visual, aural, and haptic stimuli, which is designed to make participants feel that they are in another place, by substituting their normal sensory input with computer data. See also cyberspace ; telepresence . ...
virtual reality n. Quick reference
A Dictionary of Psychology (4 ed.)
... reality n . A computer-generated perceptual simulation of a three-dimensional image or environment with which the viewer can interact, often requiring a headset or goggles providing visual stimuli and gloves or other bodily attachments fitted with sensors. In a typical virtual reality display, turning the head produces an appropriate change in what is seen, and moving a hand activates a corresponding movement of an image of a hand in the display. The term, which became popular in the 1980s, is based on the concept of a virtual image in optics, which...
virtual reality Reference library
The Oxford Companion to the Body
...are designed to be virtual equivalents of real-world (i.e. physical) environments. Other virtual worlds exist only in their virtual form and for these worlds the term virtual ‘reality’ is something of a misnomer. A view inside a typical virtual building. The variety and fidelity of sensory information provided by VR applications varies widely and is typically limited by a trade-off between cost and benefit. A person's sense of presence is one nebulous, subjective measure of the degree to which they feel that they are actually inside a virtual world, and this...
virtual reality Quick reference
A Dictionary of Business and Management (6 ed.)
... reality ( VR ) A computer modelling system capable of creating three-dimensional simulated environments that give the user the experience of being inside, and interacting with, the environment being modelled. Used as part of computer-aided design systems, VR enables customers to view new products without the expense of creating prototypes. Building layouts, for example, can be optimized by allowing customers to ‘walk through’ the VR model. Most systems allow them to move elements of the design, with any modifications (e.g. repositioned doors) being...
virtual reality Quick reference
A Dictionary of Film Studies (2 ed.)
..., especially as regards screen violence and pornography . Further Reading: Bryant, Antony and Pollock, Griselda Digital and Other Virtualities: Renegotiating the Image (2010). Bucher, John Storytelling for Virtual Reality: Methods and Principles for Crafting Immersive Narratives (2018). Chan, Melanie Virtual Reality: Representations in Contemporary Media (2014). Tricart, Celine Virtual Reality Filmmaking: Techniques and Best Practices for VR Filmmakers ...
virtual reality systems Quick reference
A Dictionary of Electronics and Electrical Engineering (5 ed.)
... reality systems Real-time computer-generated images, sounds, and sensations that imitate the physical world, usually presented to the user using immersive techniques such as head-mounted displays , hand tracking , and haptic interfaces that provide force feedback. See also augmented reality ; immersive digital environment . https://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality/what-is-virtual-reality.html Website of the Virtual Reality Society ...
Virtual Reality Modeling Language Quick reference
A Dictionary of the Internet (4 ed.)
... Reality Modeling Language A standard, often referred to as VRML, that is used to define three-dimensional objects which can be viewed using a conventional browser or a VRML browser. In conjunction with other software, the language can be used to create virtual worlds...
Virtual reality Reference library
Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase & Fable (2 ed.)
... reality . A computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional image or environment that can be interacted with in a seemingly real way by someone wearing a head-mounted display screen and special gloves. The term was originally used by computer programmers in the 1980s to describe any interactive technology but took on its present sense in 1989 , when a US musician, Jaron Lanier , designed the equipment that allows users to participate in the simulation. See also Cybersex...
