Virtual Reality (VR) Equipment

VR devices are the hardware products used for VR technology to happen. The different key components of VR system are discussed below. The figure (number) shows the high-level view of Virtual World Generator (VWG). The inputs are received from the user and his surroundings and appropriate view of the world are rendered to displays for VR experiences.

By almost any metric, high-end headsets cost a lot. The Oculus Rift is $599, plus the still-unknown cost of its motion controllers. The HTC Vive is $799

Personal Computer (PC)/Console/Smartphone

Computers are used to process inputs and outputs sequentially. To power the content creation and production significant computing power is required, thereby making PC/consoles/smartphones important part of VR systems. The VR content is what users view inside and perceive so it is equally important as other hardwares.

Input devices

Input devices provides users the sense of immersion and determines the way a user communicates with the computer. It helps users to navigate and interact within a VR environment to make it intuitive and natural as possible. Unfortunately, the current state of technology is not advanced enough to support this yet. Most commonly used input devices are joysticks, force Balls/Tracking balls, controller wands, data gloves, trackpads, On-device control buttons, motion trackers, bodysuits, treadmills and motion platforms (virtual omni).

Output Devices

Devices that each stimulate a sense organ. Output devices are used for presenting the VR content or environment to the users and it is utmost devices to generate an immersive feeling. These include visual, auditory or haptic displays. Like input devices, the output devices are also underdeveloped currently because the current state-of-art VR system does not allow to stimulate human senses perfect ideal manners. Most systems support visual feedback, and only some of them are enhanced it by audio or haptic information.

Software

Apart from input, output hardware and its coordination, the underlying software is also equally important . It is responsible for the managing of I/O devices, analyzing incoming data and generating proper feedback . The whole application is time-critical and software must manage it: input data must be handled timely and the system response that is sent to the output displays must be prompt in order not to destroy the feeling of immersion. The developer can start with basic software development kit (SDK) from a VR headset vendor and build their own VWG from scratch. SDK usually provide the basic drivers, an interface to access tracking data and call graphical rendering libraries. There are some ready-made VWG for particular VR experiences and has options to add high-level scripts.