Vision

Historically, one of the first human senses that was addressed in Virtual Reality applications was vision. The first computer-generated images were produced in the 1950s. Some of the first images generated by an electronic – analog–machine were created by Ben Laposky. This mathematician and artist from Iowa produced images by manipulating electronic beams displayed across the fluorescent face of an oscilloscope's cathode-ray tube. Laposky called his oscillographic artworks “oscillons” and “electronic abstractions.” The history of Virtual Reality presented in Chapter 1 shows that the first VR systems like Sutherland's ultimate display or Heilig's Sensorama were based on graphical displays.

As will be discussed in the following chapters, vision is not necessarily the most relevant of human senses, but it is recognized as the primary source of information about the outside world. Vision is commonly used to double check the accuracy of other senses, for example, we direct our sight toward unexpected sources of sound, such as an ambulance siren, to verify their location and evaluate potential danger. The human vision system allows us to recognize shapes in a three-dimensional space with different colors and light intensities.

In Chapter 2 we covered in detail the mathematical and computational foundations for computer graphics generation. Chapter 3 explained how to put such graphics in motion. This chapter describes the technologies that are currently used to display the graphical aspect of a virtual world.