How Does Virtual Reality Work?

Key takeaways

Virtual reality (VR) systems use hardware and software to stimulate human perception using sensory cues experienced in the physical world.

• VR systems use hardware, including displays, sensors, and computers, to try and convince the brain that the virtual world is the physical world.

• Software uses recorded images and computer-generated images to create the perception of the real world, compared to the VR world.

• You can rely on artificial intelligence (AI), specifically, natural language processing, to create a hands-on, immersive virtual reality experience.

Learn more about how virtual reality works, what components it requires, and how to develop an engaging virtual reality experience. If you’re ready to begin developing your VR skills, consider enrolling in the University of London’s Virtual Reality Specialization. In as little as two months, you’ll have the chance to learn about the fundamentals of VR, its hardware, and its history. By the end, you’ll have gained in-depth knowledge that’ll prepare you for a role in VR.

How does virtual reality work?

VR overrides its user’s senses through a feedback loop of tracking sensors and stimulation produced by VR hardware, software, and the user’s relationship to the physical world. Three things make up VR systems:

• Hardware

• Software

• Human perception

Let’s examine how each aspect of a VR system produces a virtual reality experience.

What is the science behind virtual reality?

The science of virtual reality is based on stimulating human perception using sensory cues that you experience in the physical world, like texture, perspective, occlusion, and field of view. Much of the science and mathematics in generating realistic VR worlds comes from creating a 2D visual out of a 3D space, much like how the eyes render the 3D physical world as a 2D perception. Two cues, binocular disparity and motion parallax, are important in generating this perception. 

Hardware

The hardware of a VR system transmits a stimulus to the physical world so that the user’s eyes and ears can convert it into a neural impulse. The goal is to convince the brain that the virtual world is the physical world and that the aural and visual displays are natural stimulation.

Three main hardware components make up a VR system:

• Displays: Devices that output stimuli for various sense organs. These could be screens for the eyes, speakers or headphones for the ears, or haptic feedback for the sense of touch.

• Sensors: Devices that take input signals from the physical world. They detect the orientation of the various sense organs. Other sensors include a digital camera to track the eyes, ears, hands, and other body movements. Additionally, infrared cameras sense depth through a projection of infrared light not visible to the human eye.

• Computers: Devices that take in the input sensors and display the output stimuli to run the virtual world generator (VWG). These computers can range from a desktop computer running to a headset with wires or something as simple as a smartphone that drops into the headset. Special computing components like graphics processing units (GPUs) and display interface chips help the VR system perform.

Software

Software for VR works through the inputs it receives from hardware in the physical world, supplying these to the VWG to constantly render the stimulation to make the VR. The software creates the perception of the real world versus the VR world, using recorded images, computer-generated images (CGI), or a combination of both.

Additionally, software attempts to match the user's motion in the physical world with their motion in the virtual world, ensuring that the viewpoints of objects in the world align. Software dictates what happens when a user wants to move outside of the matched motion from the sensors. Additional hardware, like a controller, allows users to move. The software accounts for physics by applying various algorithms to similar physics in the physical world, deciding how simple or complex a VR world should be.

When creating VR, a software development kit (SDK) gives a basic set of rules from a hardware vendor on how to build a VWG from scratch that includes all of their physics, audio, and movement. Some companies produce their VWG that developers can use as a starting point with implemented rules and safety.

Human perception

VR must consider the effects of artificial stimuli on the human senses. Each human sense has a stimulus, a receptor, and organs that perceive the physical world. VR engineers stimuli that act on human neurological pathways, similar to how senses in the physical world operate. Sometimes your brain reacts poorly to stimuli, creating a fusion of senses that can cause fatigue, headaches, nausea, or an inability to interpret the experience as “real.”

The adaptation of human sense perception can cause VR developers to forget what VR does to the senses of someone who has never interacted with it before. Although you slowly become comfortable with VR, a developer who always interacts with it may make design flaws that they do not notice. An understanding of the effects of VR on human perception must be fully understood so that VR stimulates what it’s supposed to while limiting side effects.

Read more: What Is VR?

How does AI work in VR?

AI works with VR to help create interactive avatars that can hold conversations through natural language processing. This function of AI could aid training modules in high-skill workplaces by giving you an immersive, hands-on experience of the workplace in a safe environment. AI development tools can help streamline the creation of VR worlds as well as create a better user experience.

How to develop an effective virtual reality experience

Focus on human physiology and perception to develop an effective virtual reality experience. A range of experiences can help inform this process, including video games, cinema, broadcasting, visualization, and engineering. Let’s examine some guiding principles for effective VR:

1. Begin development, looking to maximize comfort, reduce eye strain, and create an immersive experience.

2. Create virtual worlds with realistic scales, objects in full 3D, and textures from all angles, and ensure all geometric models render correctly. 

3. Ensure that the views from the left and right eyes are the same, with the only difference being the angle of each object, color, or texture.

4. Optimize rendering and frame rate per your given hardware requirements to maintain a consistent framerate and minimize latency.

5. Ensure that audio tracking and localization from speaker systems work with headphones.

6. Take breaks while designing a VR world to avoid VR sickness.

7. Learn how to spot flaws when designing VR systems through perceptual training.

Discover free resources for your career

Explore insights into your industry and gain access to helpful career tips by subscribing to our LinkedIn newsletter, Career Chat! If you want to learn more about virtual reality and the larger world of AI, check out these free resources:

• Build your knowledge: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Glossary: Learn AI Vocabulary

• Watch on YouTube: How to Become a Software Developer 

• Hear from an expert: 6 Questions With a Google AI Research Director

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