A look at virtual reality today: headsets, applications, and programming
As a mental health counselor and a virtual reality enthusiast, I could not help but wonder: What kind of accomplishments and discoveries could be made were we to merge these worlds together?
Virtual reality (VR) first piqued my interest when I was just in 2nd grade. In 2003, after watching Spy Kids 3D: Game Over, a movie about a young boy trying to rescue his sister in a virtual reality game, I began to fabricate worlds in my mind that could be accessed simply by the press of a button. Fast forward about 10 years, the first season of Sword Art: Online (SAO) came out. SAO is a Japanese animated series that takes in the concept of a full-dive VR experience, capable of replicating all five senses by directly stimulating nerves in the brain, through the use of a headset called the “NerveGear”. SAO immediately bombarded large demographics with the question: Is a full-dive VR experience possible? The first season of SAO came out in July of 2012, and it’s no coincidence that one of the most dominant VR headsets today, the Oculus Rift, kickstarted in August of 2012. Shortly after in 2016, HTC Vive and Playstation VR was released and in 2019, Steam, the widely known gaming distribution titan, released their Steam Index. Thus began the era of VR for gamers… but is this the only realm in which VR has become the new norm?
What exactly is VR? According to the Virtual Reality Society(VRS), VR can be defined by first taking the term apart.
“The definition of ‘virtual’ is near and ‘reality’ is what we experience as human beings. So the term ‘virtual reality’ basically means ‘near-reality’… virtual reality entails presenting our senses with a computer generated virtual environment that we can explore…” . In technical terms, “Virtual reality is the term used to describe a three-dimensional, computer generated environment which can be explored and interacted with by a person. That person becomes a part of this virtual world or is immersed within this environment and whilst there, is able to manipulate objects or perform a series of actions” (VRS, 2017).
There are two aspects of VR that adheres to different demographics: tethered VR or standalone VR. Tethered refers to whether the VR system requires the use of other hardware, such as a PC, a PS4, or an Xbox, in order to work. Standalone includes all the parts required to function and deliver the VR experience. Tethered VR systems are frequently used by those within the gaming community and include the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Sony PlayStation VR, and the Steam Index. Standalone VR systems are directed more towards virtual experiences such as sight-seeing, watching shows, or designing and creating projects. Their gaming database is not as expansive, but still noteworthy. These standalone systems include the Oculus Quest VR and the Oculus Go, Lenovo Mirage Solo, Pico Goblin, RtTech, and Samsung Gear VR.
Thus far, both tethered and standalone VR can only replicate two senses: sight and hearing. To briefly entertain the question of whether or not it’s possible to achieve replicating all five sense in VR, it is and it’s available, but not to the extent of it being entirely done in the comfort of our own homes. The Void is an example of a whole-body, fully immersive, VR experience, and it’s located in the Financial District of NYC, right in The Oculus shopping mall. Utilizing other systems alongside the headsets, such as haptic vests, hand-trackers, configured props, developed landscapes, and scented environments, The Void is able to replicate something along the lines of a full-dive VR experience. To also entertain the question of a future where full-dive experience from a headset alone is possible, I would highly encourage looking into the platform Open Brain Computing Interface (OpenBCI) and it’s many uses such as in the medical field.
Crawling out of the rabbit hole that is full-dive VR, VR systems most readily available for consumers are undeniably the standalone versions. With a headset and optionally, a smartphone, people are able to travel across lands and seas to experience the sights and sounds of places that would typically cost a great deal of time and/or money. This is now entirely possible in the comfort of your own home. It comes as no surprise that this can often feel like an escape… from reality if you will. Whether it’s to tune out the pressures from work, or put off that next school assignment, VR is readily available to help take off that stress and place you in an entirely different environment. Needless to say, many people find the VR experience therapeutic to some extent.
The application of VR in therapy was first explored in the late 90’s by Max North PhD. Today, it has become an entire field of research on its own: virtual reality therapy (VRT), or virtual reality immersion therapy (VRIT). As many people become familiar with VR, they may find some experiences triggering feelings of excitement, anxiety, fear, or sadness. In 2005, the Institute of Creative Technologies developed a VR experience called Bravemind to help many war veterans combat their PTSD. By repeatedly immersing them in controlled VR scenarios which trigger stress and anxiety, they begin to slowly desensitize those triggers while also processing those feelings. They called this “Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET)”. VRET also helped expose those who did not have PTSD to controlled stressful or anxiety-inducing situations in order to help them develop resilience and preparedness in similar situations in the real world.
However, working to reduce symptoms of PTSD was not the only application for a therapeutic VR experience. In 2019, a research team from the Ewha University: College of Nursing in South Korea, did a meta-analysis reviewing 11 other scientific studies in order to determine whether virtual reality had any impact on patients with mental cognitive impairment (MCI), otherwise known as dementia. Although more research needs to be done as usage of VR in the medical field is relatively new, their research did reveal that a majority of patients had improved cognitive functioning with prolonged usage of VR (Kim et.al, 2019).
Due to VR’s ability to wholly immerse a user without distraction, it can be used to help patients with ADHD or patients who have autism improve cognitive function, brain activity, and concentration/focus. Outside of mental health treatment, virtual reality is applicable in many other scenarios as well. An increasing number of medical students have undergone training in VR scenarios in order to create mock surgical processes. Pain management is another field that has found the distraction of VR to help patients significantly. In the sports world, VR is also becoming a tool used by coaches and players to improve their performance on the field/court.
As VR systems become cheaper and more readily available for a larger demographic of consumers, the demand for those who are capable of developing software for VR technology has skyrocketed as well. Some of the most used programming languages in VR include Java, JavaScript, C++, and C#. HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and the Samsung Gear VR all utilize JavaScript. C++ and C# are largely used in the game development community as they correlate to two rival game engines: Unreal(C++) and Unity(C#).
The VR market has also grown exponentially. According to Hall and Takahashi, an augmented reality and VR projected growth chart showed revenue to be around $4 billion USD in 2016 and is expected to reach $95 billion USD by 2025. Meanwhile, Payscale estimate the average VR developer salary to be $104,000 in the US and a quick search on GlassDoor indicated that average salary in the NY metropolitan area to be $81,711. Both estimates being higher than the national average salary.
At the rate that VR is growing, fiction may soon become fact as movies such as The Matrix, Tron, Jumanji, and Ready Player One depict scenes which were once thought of to be dreams achievable in a far-off future. Perhaps the creator of SAO estimated correctly in saying that a full-dive headset would be available in 2022. However, there is one thing that we can all be certain about: Virtual reality is inevitable in our future and full dive VR is not as distant as we may think it is.
Sources:
Virtual Reality Society (VRS) : Definition
https://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality/what-is-virtual-reality.html
Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy
https://www.verywellmind.com/virtual-reality-exposure-therapy-vret-2797340
The effectiveness of virtual reality for people with mild cognitive impairment or dementia: a meta-analysis
https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-019-2180-x
4 Programming Languages for Virtual Reality Coding
https://engineering.eckovation.com/programming-languages-develop-virtual-reality-apps/
Augmented and virtual reality: the promises and peril of immersive technology
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/augmented-and-virtual-reality-the-promise-and-peril-of-immersive-technologies
