Virtual Reality: Advantages and Disadvantages

What is VR and its benefits for everyday human life?. The word virtual reality is certainly not foreign to hear in this modern era. Virtual reality or VR itself has been widely applied in everyday life, whether to help with work or for entertainment.

What is Virtual Reality

VR is a technology that can make users interact with the environment in the virtual world which is the result of simulation by a computer. With VR, users can feel as if they are in the created environment.

VR or virtual reality offers many advantages for human daily life. The use of VR has also been applied in many fields such as to see designs from homes or hotels, to play games, to fly planes for those aspiring pilots.

VR usually requires special equipment such as computer screens, loudspeakers to receive information, and various other complementary equipment.

The History of Virtual Reality

Morton Heilig, nicknamed by the Fahter of Virtual, created a theater mechanical device called the Sensorama in 1956. With this equipment, viewers can watch short films accompanied by various senses ranging from smell, sight, hearing, to touch. The device was patented in 1962.

In the 1960s, Morton Heilig also invented the Telesphere Mask which was also later patented. Telespehere and HMD themselves are the forerunners of VR devices that exist today.

In 1968, Ivan Sutherland and Bob Sproull created a VR/AR head that could be directly connected to a computer with an HMD system called The Sword of Democles. Unfortunately, the tool when it was first created was too heavy and uncomfortable to use.

The development of VR began rapidly since 1980. VR technology also began to be developed for games in 1993 with the first company to develop it was SEGA. And until now, VR games have also continued to develop by providing a wide selection of games that can be played.

How Virtual Reality Works

So how does this advanced technology work? The way VR works is by manipulating the human brain so that they can experience virtual things that are more real. In a way, VR makes it seem as if humans are entering the virtual world and not in contact with the real world.

There are several important elements in VR, such as the virtual world, which is content that creates a virtual world in the form of a screenplay or it can be in the form of a script. There is also immersion which is a sensation that brings technology users to feel an environment that seems real.

Another element is interactivity which is useful for responding to user actions. Thus, users can also interact directly in the virtual world.

8 Functions and Benefits of Virtual Reality

There are many benefits that can be obtained from the use of VR for human life today. The various benefits of VR in various fields include the following:

1. Medical Training for Doctors

Doctors can also perform medical exercises by doing a fairly realistic simulation. In this case, doctors can see inside the human body through simulations to improve their quality in the world of medicine.

2. Practice Flying an Airplane

With VR, the practice of flying an airplane can feel more real. The advantage of doing exercises with VR is that training to fly an airplane can be done without having to spend a lot of money, either for the fuel or for the plane rental.

In addition, the risk of using VR is also smaller than flying a plane directly. Thus, security or the risk of unwanted things happening will also be smaller.

3. Increase Sales of a Product

Can also be used to promote the products you sell. With VR, you can promote display items or displays. With VR, potential buyers can try various products that are sold more realistically.

For example, when a prospective buyer wants to buy a watch, he can feel the sensation of using the watch in his hand. This of course will be very profitable for shop owners.

4. Military Simulation

What is VR and its benefits, is also useful to be applied in the military world. In this case, the user can perform exercises to improve strategy, practice shooting, training to defuse bombs, and so on.

And there are many more benefits of VR for everyday human life. Just apply VR yourself in the desired field.

5. As Entertainment

VR can also be used as a medium for entertainment, for example to play games. With VR, the game will also look and feel more real. Thus, you can also use VR to reduce fatigue and stress after work or study. Just choose what kind of game you want.

6. Education

Finally, the benefits of VR are no less important, namely in the field of education. One platform that already uses this technology is Unimersiv in collaboration with Oculus and Samsung Gear.

The types of simulations provided by Unimersiv are human anatomy, the solar system and even past life.

VR technology in the future is expected to become a more effective and interactive learning medium because students can experience learning that is less boring and easier to understand.

7. Architecture

The design of a building can use VR to try before the design is realized. The graphics produced from VR are better because they use 3D technology, so the results will be more detailed when compared to 2D results.

8. Accessories

Of course, virtual reality does not only require a VR headset, but also requires additional accessories such as haptic gloves, full body haptics suits, trackers, omnidirectional treadmills and virtual cocktails. These accessories are used to maximize the use of virtual reality.

5 Examples of Virtual Reality

1. Full Body Haptic Suits

This setting is a haptic setting that allows users to experience what is in the virtual world. This suit consists of two parts, namely a jacket and trousers. The company that has produced this suit is Teslasuit.

2. Haptic Gloves

Haptic gloves are one of the complementary accessories for VR. Main function of haptic gloves is as a simulator of a condition, to make it look more real. In addition, these gloves are used to capture hand movements and provide a real sensation.

These gloves can also sense objects that are touched, even the weight, texture and size of objects in the virtual world. Haptx Inc, a technology company from the United States has produced haptic gloves entitled Haptx. Another company that produces haptic gloves is Teslasuit. Teslasuit introduces its newest haptic gloves called Teslasuit gloves.

3. Omnidirectional Treadmill

As the name implies, omnidirectional treadmills are used so that users can run in the virtual world but in the real world they do not move positions.

Omni is a company that produces directional treadmills, which has distributed its products to 45 countries.

4. Virtual Cocktail

This tool is used to create the illusion as if consuming a drink. Virtual cocktails can create the taste of the drink from the selected color and smell. The device is connected via an app and is not actually head-mounted along with the VR headset.

5. Tracker

Tracker functions to track any object near the user to enter the virtual world. HTC Vive Tracker is a product released by the HTC Vive company in 2018.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Virtual Reality

Being a technology that has helped a lot of human work to date, VR offers various advantages and disadvantages. To find out more clearly about the advantages and disadvantages of VR, you can refer to the following reviews:

Advantages of Virtual Reality

With VR, work that was initially difficult can be done more easily. An example is when designing various types of buildings such as houses, hotels, or buildings. The use of VR technology also allows one to have more fun.

Until now, there are lots of VR games that can be used to relieve fatigue and stress that you can try. Just choose the type of game you want as your stress reliever.

Disadvantages of Virtual Reality

Although it offers many advantages, VR also has disadvantages that should be considered. The downside of VR is increasing unemployment because fewer people are needed to design various types of projects.

In addition, some people also tend to prefer interacting with the artificial world rather than the real world. Not to mention the manufacture of VR which tends to be expensive and various other drawbacks that should be considered before using it.

Conclusion

For those of you who don’t know what VR is and its benefits, you can take a look at the review above. With the various advantages it offers, VR is widely applied to help human work. Not only that, this technology has also created many job opportunities such as VR software engineers, designers, and others.

• Virtualization: Details, How It Works, Types and Benefits