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Understanding Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality
For many people, terms such as "virtual reality" and "augmented reality" can get confusing at times. They may sound similar, and truth be told they overlap a little bit, but they refer to two separate technologies.
Virtual reality has been made popular by headsets such as Oculus' Rift S, HTC's Vive, and so on. Pieces of hardware like these used to cost many thousands of dollars less than a decade ago, but now they can be bought for under 500 dollars. A VR headset incorporates several electronic components, including two tiny monitors which trick your brain into believing that you have been transported inside a simulation or game.
Key Article Points
- VR replaces the reality around us with a virtual one
- Augmented reality makes use of the reality around us
- Both VR and AR utilize immersive technologies
Many of these headsets use accurate motion trackers, various sensors and even video cameras to determine your coordinates, the position of your feet and hands, and more. Mobile VR headsets, which don't need to connect to regular PCs, are often less powerful, because they rely on low-power CPUs to crunch all the data. So, gadgets such as Oculus Go or Google's Daydream View are less expensive and easier to wear, but if you are a hardcore gamer who wants to play great looking games in VR, you should purchase a headset which connects to, and then uses the computing power of a "real" PC.
It is true that the laptops or computers which are meant to drive VR headsets must have enough computing power themselves; to give you an idea, Oculus recommends using a system with an Intel i5-4590 / AMD Ryzen 5 1500X CPU or greater, NVIDIA GTX 1060 / AMD Radeon RX 480 or greater and at least 8 GB of RAM for its Rift S headset. There is a simple explanation for this: people who run VR simulations using less powerful computers, which are unable to deliver at least 90 frames per second at any time, are very likely to get nauseated.
As a conclusion, VR replaces the reality around us with a virtual one, allowing us to visit imaginary places and have virtual experiences. It is not all about games, though; many companies use VR headsets and custom-built solutions for the healthcare industry, education, military purposes, etc.
Soldiers can use VR simulators to get trained in various combat scenarios without getting hurt, for example. Other people can use VR simulators to beat their fear of flying, and the list of VR applications can go on and on.
In contrast, AR makes use of the reality around us, adding to it. Google and Microsoft have built intelligent eyeglasses which use transparent lenses, projecting additional information onto them. Unlike VR, in which those tiny displays don't show the world around us, augmented reality lets us see the world as it is, but adds useful information to it: the current time, the coordinates of the nearest gas station, and so on.
Ikea has built an AR application which allows customers to visualize how the furniture would look in their homes before purchasing it. Basically, the app displays accurate looking 3D models of the products in people's rooms.
Developers have also built AR-based games; you have probably heard of the hugely popular Pokemon Go, which uses the smartphone's GPS to lead people towards virtual creatures that are being displayed on the screen as if they'd be placed at player's current location.
As you can see, VR and AR may sound similar, and both of them utilize immersive technologies, which integrate virtual and real-world systems, but they achieve two very different purposes. People use VR headsets to "escape" reality, getting transported to virtual places, while AR devices and applications allow people to "enhance" reality, making it more useful and/or fun.