CS 428 - ARVR

My experiences in ARVR are pretty limited. The farthest I have taken AR in particular were AR games involving the camera on the Nintendo 3DS as well as some random smartphone apps “sensing the surroundings” and placing 3D models onto a table or wall. With VR, I have played Beat Saber on Playstation VR and gone through those weird VR experience things on the Samsung Gear VR.

As evidenced from my experience above, I’ve only ever seen ARVR implemented into a purely entertainment based medium. It’s no secret that VR has found a place in entertaining the masses, introducing a whole new dynamic to enjoying a concert through video or to being completely immersed in a new 3D space and interacting with it. For AR you also see awesome ways to enhance existing forms of entertainment like Trading Card Games or Board Games by bringing aspects of them to life.

I’m curious about the non-entertainment uses of ARVR. Doing a little bit of googling, it looks like there are a good bit of companies actually trying to use VR to train their employees, going from learning how to cook to how to drive safely because they’re a delivery company^[1]. You can see that whether it’s for entertainment or not, ARVR has ways to meet the needs of its users.

As for disadvantages, mentioned within the CS 428 week 1 page, simulator sickness is a real thing. Since VR more or less is just Visual and Auditory, you miss out on a lot of other senses like smell and motion. The jarring sensation of seeing a piece of steak cook without the accompanying smell or scalding oil jumping from the pan to your face. There’s also the danger of your surroundings. When you’re in VR you lose track of the space around you, you can very easily start hitting stuff, like I was when I played Beat Saber. That video on the Week 1 page also displayed quite a bit of people fumbling and stumbling.