Blog 2:Summary of Heim

Michael Heim's VR 101 gives us an idea of what virtual reality means, and what we have come to view virtual reality (or VR) as. I felt that there was no better way to explain what he meant by this than to quote him directly. He explains that "Our culture intentionally fuses- sometimes even confuses- the artificial with the real, and the fabricated with the natural. As a result, we end to quickly gloss over the precise meaning of virtual reality and apply the term "virtual" to many experiences of contemporary life."In this he further explains this concept in the idea of an ATM machine. While an ATM may seem like a virtual reality, it is really only virtual. ATM stands for automated teller machine and Heim explains that while it is not actually a bank teller, the machine can perform the same duties as a bank teller.

Next Heim describes the three "I"s of VR; immersion, interactivity, and information intensity. Immersion is explained as an isolation of a person's senses to make them feel as if he or she were really in a particular place. Interactivity or interaction is created by a computer's ability to change a scene as quickly as a person's mind can change it's perspective of something as well as a physical position. And Information intensity is the idea that the world of virtual reality can almost create a different life based on intelligence. He also says that Information intensity of VR can create a Telepresence. A telepresence is when "a VR system succeeds in creating the interactive feedback loop between or perceptions and the real environment, then we have full telepresence."

Heim next introduces us to Helemt or HMD (head mounted cameras). HMD allows a person to put on a helmet type device and see and hear only what goes on in the small space inside of the helmet. Special gloves can be worn to feel around inside of the virtual space created by the helmet to inhance the feeling of actually being there. The HMD creates the "six degrees of freedom" which follows the dimensions of the body and allows the camera to move the same way we do.

Finally he talks about CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment). The CAVE throws away the idea of helmets and gloves and replaces it with graphics that are projected onto walls of a room. It is a surround sound and surround screen projection in a large room rather than a small screen and headphones inside of a small helmet. The idea of the CAVE is to immerse into the environment portrayed on the walls with a much more open feeling of actually being there.