So, what is it about VR that's got everyone so excited? With your headset on, you experience synthetic scenes. It appears 3D, it feels 3D, and maybe you will even have a sense of actually being there inside the virtual world. The strikingly obvious thing is that VR looks and feels really cool! But why?
Immersion and presence are the two words that are used to describe the quality of a VR experience. The Holy Grail is to increase both to the point where it seems so real that you forget you're in a virtual world. Immersion is the result of emulating the sensory input that your body receives (visual, auditory, motor, and so on). This can be explained technically. Presence is the visceral feeling that you get of being transported there—a deep emotional or intuitive feeling. You could say that immersion is the science of VR and presence is the art. And that, my friend, is cool.
A number of different technologies and techniques...
