Tanner O'Neal

Ms. Dahle
English 1010
December 12, 2016
Digital Spaces and Virtual Worlds
I peak my head over a low, dilapidated wall and take in my surroundings. I'm overlooking an
Afghan town with small earth-colored homes lining a barren street. I pull out my PDA and
examine a map. The radio beacon, the mission objective, is somewhere to the north--straight
ahead. I get up from behind the wall and move towards the closest hovel--my rifle following my
sightline. My rifle, an AUG with a holosight and silencer, provides hardy protection. The armor
piercing rounds will make short work of any Volk infantry. I arrive at the hovel and go inside,
pulling out my sidearm, a Makarov, to provide a more CQC focused weapon. The building is
empty; thankfully. I exit the dilapidated home and move on to the next one, making sure to keep
my back to the wall. The next building has a second story and should provide a better vantage
point to scout the area. I entered the two-story building, still armed with my Makarov, and like
the building before it, this one is also empty. I climb the stairs and gaze out over the landscape.
From my position, I spot the objective: the radio beacon, whose satellite dish slowly revolves,
beeping every few seconds. I still have no clue where the remaining Volk infantry is, but it was
safe to assume that he is near the objective. Turning to leave, I caught the movement of a dark
figure. There he is, crouched low and walking along the far side of the buildings that I was in
just moments before. I raised my rifle aimed down the holosight, its red reticle finding his torso.
I pulled the trigger and shots rang out loud and conclusive. He crumpled to the ground and my
vision faded to black. I remove my virtual reality headset and take a deep breath. In retrospect, I

must have looked silly playing it: Me, sitting in a darkened room with a large black thing on my
face and two wonky controllers in my hands reacting to what would appear to outsiders as
nothing. Virtual reality, or VR, has started to gain massive popularity this year, mostly in the
gaming sphere. However, because of how young the field is, it still needs to overcome some
challenges--cost immersion, and game selection-- before it will gain a larger and more
diversified user base. Luckily, these problems have solutions that can be solved, but they won't
happen unless industry leaders like HTC, Valve, Nvidia, AMD, Unity, Intel, Oculus, and game
developers focus on reducing the cost of virtual reality (whether through reducing the required
computing horsepower or reducing the cost of the hardware itself), improving immersion, and
improving game selection. If the cost does go down then other industries such as education,
health care, and communication stand to benefit.
Virtual reality, more commonly called "VR," is a relatively new technology relying mostly on
how the brain interprets visual information. When we look at the world, we look at it through
two eyes that are about an inch and a half apart. That space gives us a stereoscopic view of the
world and allows us to see depth. Virtual reality imitates stereoscopy by using two screens
(sometimes called displays or monitors) to show the eyes their respective views of the world.
HMDs (Head-mounted display, a term referring to the headset itself as opposed to the games or
software), however, aren't simply two TVs attached to a user's face. The image has to be
manipulated and distorted to fit how humans see things; headsets accomplish this by adding a
magnification lense to the headsets, but it comes at the cost of making the pixels of the display
more visible. The solution is deceptively simple: improve the resolution, or density of pixels per
inch, of the display (Souppouris). Unfortunately, improving the resolution has its own, very
costly, drawback: the exponentially more powerful computer needed to power the display. Easily

doubling or even tripling the required horsepower, and with an increase in horsepower means an
increase in cost. The display isn't the only technology that VR uses; in fact, it's probably the most
uninteresting. The technology present in the HTC Vive's Lighthouse tracking is far more
interesting, mostly because it can track an object within impressive margins of error. Okreylos,
a developer researching VR, explains that there are two components when talking about
Lighthouse tracking: the first is the controller or headset and the second is lighthouse tracking
station itself. Two Lighthouse stations are placed in opposite corners of the room used for VR,
and each station scans the room with infrared lasers. These lasers sweep the room, alternating
vertical and horizontal beams with about a 8.333ms between each sweep (Okreylos). The
headset has IR (infrared) sensors to pick up these signals and send them to the computer (The
Oculus works in the exact opposite, with IR diodes on the headset and touch controllers and IR
cameras in the base stations.) The signals are then interpreted by the computer as motion,
velocity, and position. The computer takes the interpreted information and applies it to whatever
game or program the player is using, makes some calculations and adjustments, mostly regarding
what the player sees, and new data points are sent to the headset to be displayed. The drive for a
device to see into other worlds is as old as time, to get perspective I'll go over the history of VR.
Unlike most technologies-- automobiles or computers for example-- the progression of virtual
reality has been in short, yet massive, bursts instead of a slow and steady march. VR status as a
niche market is the most likely cause of its slow progression. This is likely the case because of
how niche virtual reality has been. There aren't many consumers to encourage faster
development, and only recently has VR resembled a viable product for the mass markets. The
length of virtual reality's history depends, in part, on what defines a "true" VR headset. What
might be considered the first attempt to thrust someone into a new environment might be, as the

web site Virtual Reality Society presents, the Stereoscopic viewer. The Stereoscopic viewer was
a simple device invented in 1838 by Charles Wheatstone that demonstrated how the brain took
two slightly different images from each eye and combined them into a single 3D view. The
device was a simple stereoscopic photo, or two photos of the same object or scene with slightly
different perspectives, viewed with a pair of lenses to distort the image into something more
natural. Sometime later it would be rebranded as the ever popular "View Master" in 1939
("History"). About ten years prior to the release of the View Master and about ninety years after
the Stereoscopic viewer, Edward Link released the first flight simulator. The flight simulator
consisted of an assortment of motors attached to a small frame to mimic the feel of turbulence
("History"). It resembled a larger version of the kiddy rides that can be found in arcades and
malls, the rides that bounce up and down and side to side to amuse the child riding. The 1950s
produced one of the more interesting attempts at virtual reality: Morton Heiligs Sensorama. The
device represented an arcade cabinet with visors on either side of the frame. It was equipped
with a stereoscopic 3D display (think of those red and cyan glasses that make us look like
dweebs), stereo speakers, fans, smell generators, and a vibrating chair. Heilig even produced six
of his own movies for the device for users to enjoy. Ten years later he made another
development, one that actually resembles modern day VR: the Telesphere. The Telesphere,
basically a Viewmaster with moving pictures and stereo sound, offered more true-to-life virtual
reality, but it lacked one key feature that VR needs: head tracking. The headset with the first
form of head tracking was the Headsight. Two Philco Corporation engineers developed the
Headsight in 1961 as a VR periscope of sorts. The device consisted of two cameras outputting to
two monitors for each of the eyes of the user. As with all iterations, it lacked something that
future versions would have; in this case, that feature is computer generated images. Ivan

Sutherland has two claims to fame when it comes to VR. The "Ultimate Display" was his first
claim to VR fame. The "Ultimate Display" was, and still is, the ideological pinnacle of VR; A
world where virtual reality is indistinguishable from reality, where " a chair... would be good
enough to sit in. Handcuffs ...would be confining, and a bullet... would be fatal" ("History"). His
later innovation, in 1968, was the first "true" VR headset. Although, to call it a "headset" is a
stretch, as it was so heavy that it had to be hung from the ceiling. What made the "Sword of
Damocles" (a name given to it for its aforementioned ceiling mount) so innovated and a "true"
VR headset was that it had computer generated images, as opposed to the Headsight's video feed.
Through the rest of the century a few companies tried their hand at VR: Visual programming
lab's (VPL) founder Jaron Lanier coined the term "Virtual Reality" and developed products for
VR, including his own headset called the "Eyephone" and gloves with haptic feedback. VR
arcade cabinets made their first, albeit short-lived, appearance. But the most notable product to
come onto the market was the infamous Virtual Boy by video game giant Nintendo. The Virtual
Boy was the Hindenburg of consumer grade VR; it was a colossal failure in every aspect. It was
uncomfortable to use, and many users complained of eye strain. It lacked any colors beyond red
and black and had few games developed for it. Its failure was so immense that one could argue
that the Virtual Boy is what pushed VR development back over 15 years ("History").
Thankfully, Palmer Luckey would revive VR with a kickstarter campaign in early 2012. His
kickstarter campaign was so successful, and the market so ready, that he made over a million
dollars in three days (Kumparak). Four years later, Palmer Luckey's company released their first
consumer-grade VR headset: the Oculus Rift. Valve, who had previously been working with
Oculus after their Kickstarter campaign but later separated, partnered with smartphone
manufacturer HTC in late 2013 to develop their own product: the HTC Vive (Souppouris).

There's no telling where VR will go from here, but if history is any indication then it's going to
be a very long time before another important breakthrough breaths life into VR once more. But
there is one key difference that separates the then from the now: our rapid technological growth.
Before the 90's 3D computer generated images where crude representations of reality, now
they're almost indistinguishable from reality. Compare the two movies Toy Story and Mona,
both are computer generated movies but one looks exponentially better. Development has to
be made on VR for it to grow like computer generated imaging has.

Virtual reality is only now starting to grow, and just a quinquennium ago it was a mere
pipedream. Because VR as a viable medium is still in its infancy and faces many problems, the
exorbitant cost of the hardware, the immersion, or rather lack thereof, and the game selection.
As it stands, the current cost to purchase just the headset is four hundred dollars for the Oculus
Rift and eight hundred for the HTC Vive (Lamkin); these prices ignore the even higher cost to
build (or buy) a VR ready computer, which can cost eight hundred dollars on the cheap end, and
for the best experience on the current hardware it's recommended to spend upwards of twelvehundred dollars. The faster and more powerful the hardware is, the smoother and more detailed
the experience will be, but even a top-of-the-line gaming rig will not give an incredibly
immersive experience, especially in comparison to what we fantasize it to be in various forms of
media like The Matrix, Assassin's Creed, Sword Art Online, and Ready Player One. Currently,
the interaction with the virtual world extends to either two hand-held controllers or a keyboard
and mouse, and the problems with these controllers is that they don't emulate how we really
interact with the real world. Another problem is the resolution of the headsets; currently, the
Vive and Rift have a resolution (a means of measuring pixels) of 2160 by 1200. Compared to
the resolution of most monitors at 1920 by 1080, this is a huge step up, but it's not nearly enough
as the individual pixels are still easy to make out while immersed in a game. Improving the

resolution would drastically improve immersion, and in the words of Yahtzee, a notable video
game critic,
"The other thing that makes VR interesting is that it's one of the few areas of gaming
that's still evolving and exploring possibilities. Standard gaming tech has been perfected
for years but the hardware lads still try to convince us we're missing out if we're not
playing Halo in ten thousand P. Resolution in VR, meanwhile is still crap! It's like
sticking your head in a bucket of Lego and improving that would actually mean
something."
("P" is often used as a shorthand for resolution, although its true meaning refers to how a monitor
refreshes its display). (Croshaw) The last, and arguably biggest problem with virtual reality is
that it lacks a "hit selling," or as Jason Ruben of Oculus calls it, a "pulp game"(IGN). There are
a few, very popular VR titles such as Tilt Brush, Raw Data, Job Simulator, and Hot Dogs,
Horseshoes & Handgrenades (my personal favorite). However, these titles lack a strong
narrative and cult-following that the gaming console market has curated over the past few
generations with games like Halo, Uncharted, and Bloodborne. The phrase Catch-22 comes to
mind when describing the VR gaming market. For the gaming industry to develop a triple-A title
for VR there needs to be a large enough market for that game, but for there to be a large enough
market there needs to be a triple-A game to draw customers to that market. However, once there
is a big budget, triple-A title, the adoption rates will climb and game developers will be more
willing to risk developing a game for VR. The more games on the system means the more
adopters, and VR will see an exponential growth. (IGN). Despite the clear path VR needs to
take, there are still critics who think that VR will be gaming's great hubris.

Fig.1. Graph displaying the release dates of CPUs compared to their calculations per second per
thousand dollars, Ray Kurzweil, "The singularity is near: when humans transcend biology", p,

67, The Viking Press, 2006. Datapoints between 2000 and 2012 represent bca estimates.

Critics of VR often cite the reasons stated above--cost, un-immersive nature, and game
selection--as reasons for VR failing and going to way of the Xbox Kinetic and Virtual Boy and,
for the time being, their fears are justified. The massive cost drives away most customers and
makes it an incredibly difficult product to sell, especially when people don't know if they'll enjoy
it. Most individuals get at least some form of motion sickness from VR, ranging from minor
dizziness to vomit-inducing nausea. For the lucky few who do not get motion sickness, they
have no guarantee that they'll even enjoy any of the games provided by the system--or at least
not be able to justify an eight-hundred-dollar purchase; however, these are problems that can be
solved if companies spend money to further develop VR, but even without special development
the cost of the computer systems is effectively guaranteed to go down for one simple reason:
Moore's Law. Moore's law is a computing term, coined in the 1970s by Gordon E. Moore, that
states that the number of transistors on an "affordable" computer processor would double every
two years ("Moore's"), meaning that in a few years the cost to purchase a VR-capable computer
will go down. Above is a graph (see fig. 1) showing the progression of computing over the past
one hundred years. The highlighted portion displays Moore's prediction, accounting for some
deviation, and the rhombi represent the various CPUs through time. The 'X' axis represents the
year and the 'Y' axis represents the "Calculations per second per $1,000," or in layman's terms,
how fast the processor is compared to its cost. If the costs go down, the sales go up (because
more people will be able to afford it), and more games will be made for the now larger audience;
thus, there is no longer a Catch-22. Cost isn't the only issue; another is that customers are
skeptical of the motion controls offered by the high-end headset, citing the Xbox Kinect and
PlayStation Move as failures. However, these issues are often brought up by people who simply
haven't tried either headset with the motion controls. The accuracy of the controllers is far

higher than that offered by Microsoft and Sony. In fact, according to Okreylos, a UC Davis
graduate and 3D graphics software programmer, the controllers of the Vive have an accuracy
(how close the digital representations of the headset and controllers are to their physical
counterparts) of 1.9mm (Okreylos) and a latency (time it takes for information from the
controller/headset to be interpreted, calculated, and shown back to the user) of 1ms at worst.
Even with these excellent advancements, VR still has one final, yet crippling, problem: motion
sickness. Thankfully, there are even solutions for this problem. While the obvious solutions of
increasing refresh rate and latency will improve as computer horsepower improves, they won't
cure all cases of motion sickness. In fact, these two issues only affect mobile VR and those with
lower end GPUs (the part in a computer that handles graphics and is most responsible for both
VR and non-VR gaming). However, there are two rather promising solutions that will benefit
more people. The first is a strange, yet simple, one: adding a virtual nose to the VR experience
(Lafayette). The other, far more interesting solution, is one being developed by Mayo Clinic: the
very ostentatious name "galvanic vestibular stimulation" (GVS). The GVS is a headband which
induces electrical impulses in the brain to stimulate the ear drums and give the sensation of
movement. VR motion sickness occurs for the same reasons that regular motion sickness does: a
mix up in what the brain sees and what it feels. When immersed in a VR experience, the eyes
perceive motion, but the brain doesn't feel that same motion, and this misalignment of sensory
signals is manifest as motion sickness. The GVS headband helps the body agree with what the
eyes experience, thus reducing motion sickness in users. (Vmocion). Benefits to reducing
motion sickness are obvious: more people can enjoy VR, and those who already use it can have a
better experience.

The rewards from developing virtual reality further benefit more than just the gaming
community, although it will likely experience the largest growth by far. Industries such as health
care, architecture, communication, and education can gain a great deal from an immersive and
cheap VR device. One of the most promising uses for VR, in regards to health care, is as a
treatment for PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder. Dr. Albert Rizzo, part of the University of
Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies, has already developed VR treatments
for PTSD and autism disorder. The treatment of PTSD (phobias can be treated as well because
they affect the brain in a similar way) usually involves exposing the individual to known triggers
until their reactions are more manageable. In a lab setting, doctors were able to help someone
with arachnophobia touch a fake spider, and war veterans are able to step into a virtual war zone
so they can get an opportunity to better heal from their real-life experiences. A virtual therapist's
office is one other possibility Dr. Rizzo has been working on. Patients wouldn't have to leave
their homes to visit their therapist, which could help in cases where the patient would not
normally have access to help. If say, they're on vacation or bedridden and require the guidance
of their therapist, they could pop on a VR headset (a useful avenue for mobile VR to pursue) and
speak with a therapist in a more natural setting. (Loria) In fact, long distance communication via
VR can be applied to many different businesses. Architects could meet in a single virtual space
to design and test their ideas for a new home or building. With a simple gesture or interface,
they could move a wall back to see if it opens up the kitchen, change the stairs from wood to
carpet, or add a whole new floor to their project. The last possibility is how VR could influence
education. One plausible, if fanciful, future could be something akin to the world in the sci-fi
novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, who imagines a world where nearly every citizen has a
VR device. Most of the population works through their headsets, and the children go to virtual

schools. The teachers can take the classrooms on any tour they want, from the inside of a blood
cell to an asteroid somewhere is the Kuiper belt. While VR isn't likely to reach such a degree of
quality as described in Ready Player One, it's still possible for it to achieve similar, if less
commonplace, results. VR could be easily adapted to teach students how to drive. Instead of
ranges and class work, they could wear a VR headset and learn through experience. The
technology is here and all that would be needed is a program and adoption. In fact, anyone who
operates a vehicle of some kind could start training with a headset on their face because the
concept is the same and all that would change is the program.
The future of VR is a powerful one that has potential for great change for many industries:
medical, construction, and education they'll all benefit from a powerful VR utility. All these
advancements are dependent on VR improving rapidly and decreasing in cost. Although virtual
reality has its fair share of problems--cost, immersion, and game selection--it still represents a
viable and fascinating solution to the problems addressed above. It's not here yet, and it
probably won't be at a viable state for some time, but it needs all the help it can get from industry
leaders like HTC, Valve, Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Oculus, and Unity along with game developers
focus on making cheaper and higher quality experiences for the masses. Getting virtual reality
cheap is the single biggest problem that these industry leaders need to solve. Everything else
should fall into line if cheap VR comes to fruition. If VR can explode like 3D graphics did in the
90s, then we can expect a lot of great benefits to come from it. VR could help war veterans
recover from PTSD, help architects build the next high-rise, teach a student how to drive, create
a virtual therapist's office, and of course build incredible and detailed worlds for gaming. VR
has a hopeful future but one that won't simply come about on its own. It is my hope that a
someday Ivan Sutherland's ideas of an "ultimate display" will be realized.

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Additional Citations
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http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2015/Q1/virtual-nose-may-reduce-simulato
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