Page 348 - Concise Encyclopedia of Robotics

Virtual Reality
Frames
Virtual reality—Fig. 1
Frames Time Your path
Time

Your path

Virtual reality—Fig. 2

you want to travel. (Again, this is a simplistic rendition; there are far more
points in an actual exploratory VR session than are shown here.) This
is similar to having a selection of movies or videotapes from which
to choose.
Three dimensions: In interactive VR, the sequence of frames depends
on your input from moment to moment, adding another dimension to
the programming. This can be rendered as a three-dimensional space
(Fig. 3). The drawing shows only a few points along one path. There can
be millions upon millions of points in the interactive experience space.
The number of possible experience paths is vastly larger than the number
of points themselves. It is impossible to make a good analogy with movies
or videotapes in this case. The software, and the required computer hard-
ware, for interactive VR is far more powerful than that in the passive or
exploratory VR experiences.

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