Now The Dream Is Virtually A Reality

The Age

Tuesday May 13, 2003

Adam Turner

Virtual reality technology has come a long way, writes Adam Turner.

Since first donning a headset to venture into Virtual Reality, developers have been waiting for technology to catch up with their vision of immersive cyberspace.

The hype surrounding VR died away as it failed to deliver the out-of-body experience promised by science fiction - the processing demands of even basic headset-based VR hampering the technology.

Thanks to hardware advances, today's off-the-shelf computers can run realistic VR applications employing a headset, earphones and glove - which have also dropped significantly in price. As a result, headset-based VR is emerging as a feasible training and research tool, says Caroline Harrison, business development manager with VR solutions provider Phrixus Technologies.

``VR had taken a backburner, it was very expensive for a long time and the systems were not fast enough to support a lot of the software. Now systems have caught up, headsets have refined and everything has got a lot cheaper," Harrison says.

``We've got things like texture mapping, which has been around for a long time but you can get things that almost look pre-rendered now in VR, which you couldn't have before. You can mix pre-rendered and video in VR now, which can make it much more realistic."

Harrison and Phrixus Technologies founder Mark Giles each has more than a decade of VR experience around the world, having both worked for the now defunct British VR pioneer Virtuality. Phrixus Technologies partnered with VR hardware distributor Mindflux in 2000 and set about reviving local interest in the technology.

Advances in VR since are not only improving its look and sound but also the ability of users to interact with a virtual environment.

A glove with embedded sensors has long been used to interact with virtual objects but haptic feedback devices, also known as force or tactile feedback, now allow users to feel virtual objects.

Mindflux/Phrixus Technologies is working with Monash University in Melbourne to develop a haptic feedback glove. Mindflux/Phrixus Technologies co-hosted a stand at CeBIT Australia in Sydney last week to raise the profile of VR in Australia and showcase the latest in headset-based training and gaming applications.

Applications for VR are being developed for fields as diverse as architecture, medicine, engineering and the military, says Harrison.

``We're trying to develop a Centre For Excellence for Virtual Reality and partnering with research institutes," she says. ``We are now partnering with universities and we want to work with a number of research institutes. We're really going to be the commercial arm and bring in business from the commercial world."

NEXT SPEAK

Virtual Reality: the simulation of a real or imagined environment that can be experienced on a computer screen or through a more immersive interface such as a wrap-around display.

Haptic feedback: the ability to feel forces and objects within a virtual reality, from centrifugal forces on the steering wheel of a driving simulation to the texture of virtual objects.