What does the term ‘virtual reality’ mean to you? With the immersive virtual reality device market being expected to reach £321.77 million by 2018, there is no denying that the popularity of immersive personalised content is becoming increasingly dominant in the digital world.

Whilst technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR) and 360° video can all enhance a user’s digital experience, they are by no means one and the same – yet this recent rise in popularity is steering the terms to be categorised under the virtual reality banner.

More than just a question of semantics, fully understanding the definitions of each form of immersive reality ensures that their full usage potential is achieved. There are many innovative ways that immersive realities can be used to improve user experiences, which can dramatically reform ways of doing things – such as buying a new home or interacting with a doctor – which will ultimately completely transform the digital world over the next decade.

Virtual reality

In essence, virtual reality fully immerses the user into a digital world – it utilises computer-generated graphics to blind the user from seeing anything in reality. With non-interactive VR, the user is a spectator – aside from a simple point-and-click, they cannot fully engage with the world. Forms of non-interactive VR include:-

• Experience – where the user is actively involved in a passive role
• Storytelling – where the user has no control over what happens within the world
• Story enabling – where the user can interact and has freedom to engage with the world

Interactive VR, however, ensures that the user can take a fully active role – completely immersing themselves by moving around, expanding senses, and interacting with objects.

Google Cardboard is perhaps the most popular device used to experience VR, due to its cheap-to-buy, easy-to-distribute nature. With reports that 90% of all VR headset sales in 2018 will be Google Cardboards, it’s clear that the Cardboard and Google’s latest VR venture Google Daydream, are giving its more expensive (yet more aesthetically pleasing) counterparts the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Samsung’s Gear VR a run for their money.

The ‘three degrees of freedom’ that comes with the Google Cardboard/Daydream provides the user with a real sense of depth and scale – it allows the user to look in every direction around them – however they cannot move about the scene by moving in real life.

Augmented reality
What could be described as VR’s younger sibling provides a more simplified version of immersive reality by seamlessly integrating digital objects (in the form of text data, 3D objects, or even video) and overlaying them onto real-world scenes to enrich user experiences. AR has more substantial barriers to overcome compared with VR – such as display technology, real-time processing challenges and real-world environment calibration, but with the global AR market being forecasted to grow at a nearly 81% compound annual growth rate from 2016 to 2024, it’s evident that AR is very much on the heels of VR.

Mixed reality

A hybrid of both VR and AR, mixed reality offers the best of both worlds – with MR experiences seeing digital content being integrated into real-time surroundings. Virtual objects are layered onto real-world objects or locations, providing a digitally enhanced real-world experience for the user. Combining the use of various technologies including sensors and advanced optics, MR can provide the user with a realistic views of virtual objects or worlds, with interactions that mimic natural behaviours – such as the changing of perspectives as you move around an object.

360° video

360° content has been pigeonholed to sit under the immersive reality moniker – but when compared to the likes of VR and AR, it isn’t actually a form of VR at all. Sometimes referred to as spherical video, the standard form of 360° video is monoscopic – simply an image created by a camera that is stitched together from various angles to create a 360° view. But as the user is not fully immersed (the user cannot move forward, and content can be viewed without a headset), 360° content provides an immersive visual experience, rather than an immersive reality. The more advanced form of 360° video uses stereoscopy (created using two side-by-side lenses) which introduces depth information and provides each eye with a different vantage point.

Whatever the platform, with the amount of VR and AR devices being sold forecasted to rise from 2.5 million in 2017 to 24 million in 2018, it is irrefutable that immersive reality is here to stay.

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