Virtual Reality: Recapping recent developments and looking where we're going

Technologies such as Virtual and Augmented Reality have had renewed public interest at a consumer level.

28 Jan 2022   6 min read

Virtual Reality: Recapping recent developments and looking where we\'re going

By Ryan Johnston, PhD Researcher (Visualisation & Immersive technology for NetZero Neighbourhoods)

Since 2015 Extended Reality (XR) technologies such as Virtual and Augmented Reality have had renewed public interest at a consumer level. Driven by the gaming and entertainment industry as well as significant advances and cost reductions in computing power and display technologies in part driven by the growth of the mobile phone industry.

Hardware to hard cash

The mixing of these technologies supported Palmer Luckey at 19 years old in West USA to found and develop the VR company Oculus, with a crowd-funded kick starter campaign in 2012. Palmer developed prototypes for the next generation of immersive technology in his parents' garage from old VR heads that sold the dream of VR but never really lived up to the hype, such as the Nintendo Virtual Boy from 1995.

Palmer launched a series of developer kit Oculus Rifts (DK1 & DK2) aimed at technology and coding enthusiasts through the kickstart program until Oculus was purchased by Facebook in 2014 for $3 Billion, supporting the development of the first consumer grade Oculus (CV1).

The Oculus CV1 was released in 2016, in the same year HTC also released the HTC Vive VR, full kit for both sets retailed at approximately £800-£1000. A significant difference at the time was the CV1 came without hand controllers allowing it to start at £500, however upon increased adoption it was confirmed that inclusion of hands was an essential aspect of VR and later releases for Premium VR headsets have all included hand-tracking.

In addition to the cost of VR headsets a high-performance desktop computer with power graphics card was required to run the content, approx. £1000 for a starting PC rig. This early adoption price of £2000 limited premium VR consumer adoption, while also creating challenges for content developers.

Both the HTC and CV1 worked by connecting to the PC for processing and then external base stations for location calibration know as Outside In tracking. This resulted in a physical tether from the user to the PC as well as a reliance on set up time to adjust the external sensors. Breaking the immersion for some and creating a set-up that was more difficult for average consumers to use and for demonstrations in commercial settings.

The use of two screens in the headsets (one for each eye) doubled the polygons and triangle count that would need to be displayed, high number of triangles requires more complex calculations to produce the content. This meant many developers would have to refine the production process as well as development companies to create new components to facilitate the new motion sensing technologies.

Content is key

Content is a key factor in technology adoption as well as its application either as a game or a more serious application such as testing public reactions to self-driving cars in controlled environments. The content is what determines what the hardware is used for. In simple terms the content can be static or interactive, static could be an image or 360 video that a user can view and replay but not interact with. Interactive content is often more complex to create, but helps provide a high degree of control and immersion as well as data interaction.

The use of an architectural BIM model within a VR environment could be considered interactive. But the levels of interactivity are limited by what developers include. This creates a spectrum of what VR is from Google cardboard using a phone and 360 YouTube video to a thousand-pound premium set that enables users to turn on and off lighting and open a bottle of wine from the fridge and watch as they pour it into a glass using their own hands.

Two major providers of game development software are Unity by Unity Technologies and Unreal Engine by Epic Games. Both softwares are free to download and use for personal development and research purposes, there are also no fees until a considerable income is generated from the created content. This helps to reduce the financial barrier to entry for new/indie developers but also for companies looking to develop with these new to industry technologies such as healthcare, transport and architectural design.

Head first into the Metaverse

HTC continues to focus on ultra-premium headsets, while Oculus under Facebook has opted to focus on high-end headsets at a low price point (some suggesting at a loss to increase adoption) with the Oculus Rift 2 released in 2020 at £299, for a fully wireless headset that requires no PC to use.

The headset also uses inside out tracking, using a series of cameras on the device to track and map the environment – providing complete freedom of movement. The technology has even inspired Facebook to create a parent company called Meta to manage all its assets, since it believes the VR side of the business will become its core in years to come.

Meta is a term related to Metaverse, a phrase that is still finding its official definition but relates to the concept of virtual worlds where users can seemly transition between content and maintain their information and digital purchases. Comparisons have been made with the creation of the internet in terms of the impact it could have on businesses' work trends, entertainment and e-commerce.

The rate of development as a technology is considerably advancing bringing with it new practicalities and use cases outside of gaming as it continues. As the devices become portable battery level and performance is an area of continual development as is motion sickness, created from a cognatic disconnect between what someone sees and what they physically experience – like car sickness.

Various hardware solutions such as treadmills and software solutions such as vignettes when moving have been developed with various cost benefit tradeoffs. However, increased developer awareness and education to limit the scenarios that create sickness are critical.

Research at Ulster University

Ulster University has exciting research being conducted across a range of disciplines to understand the benefits that VR & AR could bring moving forward including Education, Healthcare, Enterprise, Entertainment and Sustainable Design of Architecture. A current PhD student, Ryan Johnston is using his PhD to understand the potential benefits of merging technology in designing Net Zero Neighbourhoods.

The concept is based on existing sustainability research from Norway at the FME Zen Centre and Fraunhofer Singapore. The ZEN Centre in particular was responsible for developing a series of seven KPIs that can be used to judge the potential and capacity of a cluster of buildings to perform together to create climate positive results. Ryan is also supporting Architects of Change — a collaborative education project between Belfast City Council and Ulster University.

The project seeks to bring the least methods and understanding on sustainable design to current decision makers, provided by current Ulster University students in a "training the trainers" style approach. Ryan uses his previous industrial experience as a Senior GIS Consultant along with his current research at Ulster, to support students' understanding of multidisciplinary approaches to new technologies and sustainable spatial data communication.

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