Chinese Painting Essay Research Paper Virtual RealityVirtual

Chinese Painting Essay, Research Paper

Virtual RealityVirtual reality is the concept of illusion. It is an artificial realm itself, a fresh experience that involves the use of high technology. It is to convince oneself the existence of a non-real world. It is also a method to communicate ideas, thoughts, and a tool to experience what one might not be able to achieve. The term virtual reality was coined by Jaron Lanier, founder of VPL Research, to distinguish between the immersive digital worlds he was trying to create and traditional computer simulations (Pimentel & Teixeira, XV). On the other hand, virtual reality can be defined as an interactive three-dimensional playground (Gradecki, 9) that allows human to interact with the computer and immerse into the digital world through a VR program. One then can able to explore another dimension in first-person perspective and even manipulate objects. Virtual reality (VR) is enabled based on the concept of synergy , in which “bottom-up approach” (course kit, 69) is used to study how synergy or emergence property works. Researchers study over artificial life and investigate the whole system from the bottom up to the top. It is best explained that by looking into the way of how the individual artificial life interacts with each other and seeing how different unpredictable combinations are evolved (course kit, 69). Therefore, using synthesis instead of analysis, artificial lives are not separate with each other but are forced to interact with one another. Aside from that, artificial life has another crucial feature – true reproduction of each individual can be carried out so as it resembles real living creatures on the earth (course kit, 68). Since a set of computer instructions is programmed into each artificial life, these instructions act as their genes to produce offspring and so reproduction carries on in the following generations. After all, artificial life is able to evolve into new forms after generations. Hence, the greatest contribution of emergent property is to give us a way to study innovation or novelty (course kit, 68).Before further investigation into the new technology, one should better trace back to its origin. It seems that VR was born instantaneously. In reality, it has begun since the Renaissance to the creation of motion pictures, modern civilization has been moving steadily towards more participation in imaginative worlds (Pimentel & Teixeira, XV). “The primary defining characteristic of VR is inclusion; being surrounded by an environment. VR places the participant inside information.” Therefore, the degree of how much one is immersed into another virtual world is the essential element for VR actually to work out. On the other hand, the creation of an environment requires the immersion of the senses in a computer-generated world to create the experience of “being there”. The question is not whether the created virtual world is as real as the physical world, but whether the created world is real enough for one to suspend his/hers disbelief for a period of time (Pimentel & Teixeira, 15). Today, human rely on the telephone not only to communicate, rather to provide the sense of someone else’s presence. Even though in reality one is listening to an electromechanical re-creation of another human voice. One needs to learn to ignore the telephone and concentrate on the conversation. It has now been over 100 years since the introduction of the telephone. Therefore, for four generations, people have already experienced a type of virtual reality using the telephone (Pimentel & Teixeira, 8). Similarly, watching movie or play at theatre and religious rituals both take place while all kinds of distraction from the surroundings are blocked, and one is able to immerse him/herself in his/her own world and forget about the actual reality. Virtual reality is actually experienced under these circumstances. Interactivity, like immersion, is a crucial aspect of VR. There are two unique aspects of interactivity in a virtual world: navigation within the world and the dynamics of the environment. Navigation is simply a user’s ability to move around independently as if being in there. And constraints can be set by the software developer for access into certain virtual areas, allowing various degrees of freedom (Pimentel & Teixeira, 15). This is believed to be the advantages of VR (emergent property) for one can explore and experience a new world where human are not yet able to reach.Through the development of the digital technology, VR development is advancing rapidly. There are many different formats and a variety of systems that are calling themselves virtual reality. They can be categorized into various forms. However, it is crucial to differentiate the distinction between VR and multimedia. Since the computer’s ability to manipulate and communicate makes it a “meta-medium”, a medium in which all previous media are combined and regenerated, this has led to both multimedia computers and virtual reality (Pimentel & Teixeira, 10). “Being able to mix together existing media forms, such as photos, images, sound, and books, and then come up with something new is what multimedia is all about.” The difference between virtual reality and multimedia is that VR is about creation, while multimedia is about bringing the old media forms together into the computer. They do not change so much as they get combined in new ways. VR is ab