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Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs 3D head-mounted displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world.

Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), education (such as medical, safety, or military training), research and business (such as virtual meetings). Currently, standard virtual reality systems use either virtual reality headsets or multi-projected environments to generate some realistic images, sounds, and other sensations that simulate a user's physical presence in a virtual environment. A person using virtual reality equipment is able to look around the artificial world, move around in it, and interact with virtual features or items. Virtual reality typically incorporates auditory and video feedback but may also allow other types of sensory and force feedback through haptic technology. As such, it is different from other digital visualization solutions, such as augmented virtuality and augmented reality.

Widespread adoption of the term "virtual reality" in the popular media is attributed to Jaron Lanier, who in the late 1980s designed some of the first business-grade virtual reality hardware under his firm VPL Research, and the 1992 film Lawnmower Man, which features use of virtual reality systems.

One method of realizing virtual reality is through simulation-based virtual reality. With avatar image-based virtual reality, people can join the virtual environment in the form of real video as well as an avatar. In projector-based virtual reality, modeling of the real environment plays a vital role in various virtual reality applications, including robot navigation, construction modeling, and airplane simulation. Image-based virtual reality systems have been gaining popularity in computer graphics and computer vision communities. Desktop-based virtual reality involves displaying a 3D virtual world on a regular desktop display without use of any specialized VR positional tracking equipment. A virtual reality headset typically includes two small high resolution OLED or LCD monitors which provide separate images for each eye for stereoscopic graphics rendering a 3D virtual world, a binaural audio system, positional and rotational real-time head tracking for six degrees of movement. Augmented reality (AR) is a type of virtual reality technology that blends what the user sees in their real surroundings with digital content generated by computer software. Simulated reality is a hypothetical virtual reality as truly immersive as the actual reality, enabling an advanced lifelike experience or even virtual eternity.

The original LEEP system was redesigned for NASA's Ames Research Center in 1985 for their first virtual reality installation, the VIEW (Virtual Interactive Environment Workstation) by Scott Fisher. The LEEP system provided the basis for most of the early virtual reality headsets. Forte released the VFX1, a PC-powered virtual reality headset that same year. HTC and Valve announced the virtual reality headset HTC Vive and controllers in 2015. In 2014, Sony announced Project Morpheus (its code name for the PlayStation VR), a virtual reality headset for the PlayStation 4 video game console. In 2024, the Federal Aviation Administration approved its first virtual reality flight simulation training device: Loft Dynamics' virtual reality Airbus Helicopters H125 FSTD—the same device EASA qualified.

The Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML), first introduced in 1994, was intended for the development of "virtual worlds" without dependency on headsets.

Virtual reality is most commonly used in entertainment applications such as video games, 3D cinema, amusement park rides including dark rides and social virtual worlds. Consumer virtual reality headsets were first released by video game companies in the early-mid 1990s. Virtual reality has been used in physical rehabilitation since the 2000s.

Virtual reality (VR) technology has emerged as a significant tool in medical training and education.

Virtual reality sickness (also known as cybersickness) occurs when a person's exposure to a virtual environment causes symptoms that are similar to motion sickness symptoms.

"Step into a new world – Virtual Reality (VR)".

Quick Facts

• Currently, standard virtual reality systems use either virtual reality headsets or multi-projected environments to generate some realistic images, sounds, and other sensations that simulate a user's physical presence in a virtual environment.
• Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), education (such as medical, safety, or military training), research and business (such as virtual meetings).
• A person using virtual reality equipment is able to look around the artificial world, move around in it, and interact with virtual features or items.
• One method of realizing virtual reality is through simulation-based virtual reality.
• Simulated reality is a hypothetical virtual reality as truly immersive as the actual reality, enabling an advanced lifelike experience or even virtual eternity.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Virtual reality". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.