Sensory Immersion in VR
Virtual reality is not limited to the visualization of virtual environments, but involves a complete multisensory experience. The combination of visual, auditory, and haptic technologies enables the improvement of training, as well as a new way to interact with digital environments.
Let's see how VR takes advantage of the senses to increase the sensation of realism: surprising, exciting, and engaging, all from different areas.
The visual experience
This remains one of the most impressive pillars of this technology. Current devices are designed to cover the user's complete field of vision. Thanks to screens with 4K resolution per eye and refresh rates of up to 120 Hz, virtual environments are so sharp that it's easy to forget they aren't real. Experiences go from fantastic worlds and surreal scenarios to exact representations of real places, enhancing virtual tourism, professional simulation, and entertainment.
In aviation, for example, maintenance personnel can inspect aircraft with great realism through virtual environments, simulating repairs without the need for a physical aircraft. Meanwhile, in tourism, VR allows exploring enclaves like the Great Wall of China with highly detailed 3D models.
The Auditory Experience
3D spatial audio systems allow users to hear sounds from all directions. This adds an additional layer of immersion, as sounds behave realistically and respond to the person's location and orientation in the virtual world. If we are in a VR experience and something happens behind us, the sound will adjust accordingly, creating an immersive auditory experience that will make us feel like we are truly at the center of the action.
In sectors such as aviation, cabin crew train with precise sounds of alarms and pressure changes in critical situations such as decompression. In others such as medicine, surgery students can practice listening to virtual heartbeats, refining their auditory sensitivity before facing real cases.
Touch and Haptics
Touch is essential for a complete experience, as it adds "presence" through this sense. Haptic feedback has expanded beyond traditional controllers to advanced devices such as gloves, vests, and suits. These allow you to feel not only textures and vibrations, but also changes in temperature and pressure.
In medical and industrial training, these devices simulate impacts and material resistance. In aviation, haptic gloves help maintenance personnel practice repairs with a precise perception of pressure and critical components.
Other aspects that affect sensory immersion
Interaction models with the environment
VR allows users to interact with the virtual environment in a natural way. Virtual reality controllers track hand movements and gestures, allowing for intuitive and realistic interaction with virtual objects. This feature adds an additional layer of realism and participation.
360 Degree Experiences
Virtual experiences allow you to explore your surroundings from any angle. This creates a sensation of presence where users feel they are actually in the represented place, which enhances sensory immersion.
Improvement of eyetracking and facetracking systems
Advanced eyetracking systems in VR devices enable more agile and precise interaction. Combined with facetracking, they add realism to communication in virtual environments by replicating eye movements and facial expressions in avatars, improving social interaction in virtual reality.
All these elements combine to create more realistic and immersive virtual environments, transporting users to unimaginable experiences. As technology advances, these capabilities are being integrated into various sectors, optimizing training and interactive experiences. Let's see how below.
Applications of sensoriality in VR
The versatility of VR has led to its adoption in various industries, but in some of them, we find that sensoriality contributes in a special way:
Professional simulations and training
Sensoriality in VR has transformed professional training by offering immersive experiences that replicate reality with great fidelity. In the aeronautical sector, cabin crew can train in virtual environments facing onboard fires with heat simulation, improving their response capacity. In occupational safety, workers practice how to react to risks in a safe and controlled environment. Similarly, in medicine, virtual interventions are carried out with haptic feedback, allowing them to feel tissue resistance and improve their precision before operating on real patients.
Sensorially Immersive Education
Virtual reality transforms education by taking students beyond the classroom with immersive sensory experiences. They can tour ancient Rome, dive into the ocean, or travel from space to the inside of a cell, experiencing each environment with realism. This immersion enhances learning, making it more engaging, effective, and memorable.
Sensory entertainment
In the world of entertainment, virtual reality has opened up a range of possibilities to offer exciting sensory experiences. VR games provide adventures that challenge the senses, with stunning graphics, surround sound, and tactile interaction that puts players at the center of the action. VR movies and concerts allow people to enjoy their favorite content in immersive virtual environments, taking entertainment to a whole new level.
These examples highlight how VR is not only limited to the visual, but also involves other senses, such as hearing and touch, to create experiences that are sensorially immersive and beneficial in a wide variety of applications, which is why it continues to expand in multiple sectors. However, this technology has not yet solved everything and we can still find challenges to resolve.
Challenges and limitations
Despite its advances, virtual reality still faces challenges, especially in the realistic simulation of movements and interactions. One of the main sensory obstacles is cybersickness, a discomfort caused by the discrepancy between what the user perceives in the virtual environment and their vestibular system, generating dizziness and nausea.
Movement Lag
When movements in VR do not match those of the user in the real world, dizziness can occur. To reduce this effect, solutions are applied such as:
- Tunneling technique, which reduces peripheral vision during displacements.
- Smoother movements and gradual transitions to facilitate adaptation.
- Motion tracking with haptic controllers and position sensors.
- Dynamic foveated rendering which focuses graphics only where the user is looking, reducing visual load.
Low refresh rate
Another limitation occurs when the visor's refresh rate is low; in such cases, the lag between real movements and the image can cause dizziness. Most modern visors incorporate high refresh rates to minimize this problem.
Intense or violent experiences
Virtual situations that are too intense can generate discomfort due to the lack of real physical movement. To avoid this, it’s recommended to adjust the intensity or implement gradual acclimatization mechanisms.
The mitigation of cybersickness in virtual reality is an active area of research and development, and technologies and techniques continue to improve to provide more comfortable and enjoyable experiences for all users.
Future of sensoriality in virtual reality
The future of virtual reality will bring advances that will elevate sensory immersion to new levels. In haptic feedback, more sophisticated devices will emerge, such as suits that simulate textures, temperature, and resistance, making touch almost indistinguishable from reality. VR controllers will evolve to allow for more intuitive and natural interactions.
In visual quality, significant improvements in resolution and graphic fidelity are expected. Future VR headsets will offer higher resolutions, creating ultra-realistic virtual environments.
On the sound side, spatial audio will improve with 3D capture and acoustic simulation technologies, offering a more immersive auditory experience. The integration of artificial intelligence and sound personalization will also allow users to adapt their auditory experiences according to their preferences.
Furthermore, VR continues evoloving, and it is expected that its combination with other technologies such as augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence will offer even more impressive experiences where the line between real and virtual is completely blurred.
In summary, the future of virtual reality leads us towards a world of even more immersive and authentic sensations. Haptic devices, visual quality, and sound will continue to improve, bringing virtual reality closer to the fidelity of physical reality and expanding its applicability in various industries. These developments will not only enrich sensory experiences but will also drive the adoption and accessibility of VR, opening up new possibilities in learning, safety, and collaboration.