Virtual, augmented and mixed reality: the essence of concepts and the history of development

In the news more and more there are references to new devices of virtual and augmented reality. It’s hard to keep track of all this, and even more difficult to sort out this fragmentary information from the news. Therefore, I decided in one article to reduce all the key points relating to this industry. Indeed, in the next five years, news from this area will appear more and more often. At least that's what investors think, investing huge amounts in startups specializing in virtual reality. In addition to young enthusiasts, the largest IT enterprises also took up virtual and augmented reality seriously. But first things first…

Definitions, Similarities, and Differences

First, let's define the terminology. We look at Wikipedia:
Virtual reality (Virtual Rality, VR; hereinafter referred to as VR) is the world created by technical means (objects and subjects), transmitted to a person through his sensations: vision, hearing, smell, touch, and others. The term "virtual" comes from lat. virtualis is possible.

Augmented Reality (Augmented Reality, AR, Augmented Reality, Improved Reality, etc .; hereinafter referred to as DR) is the result of introducing any sensory data into the perception field in order to supplement information about the environment and improve the perception of information. The term itself was supposedly coined by Boeing Corporation engineer Tom Codel in 1990. Even then, the specialists of this company fixed small digital displays on their heads, helping them to mount the wires in an airplane.

The main goal of virtual reality is to create your own digital world as similar to ours as possible (at least in physical terms), but this world is still a simulated computer (or other device), i.e. essentially created by man in a digital environment from scratch. Augmented reality only imposes elements of artificial reality on our environment. Virtual reality interacts only with a person, augmented - also with the outside world.

In addition, they also distinguish mixed (hybrid, Mixed reality, MR; hereinafter - SR) reality - the combination of virtual and augmented reality, i.e. superimposing non-existent virtual objects on our environment.



A typical example of mixed reality is the Google translator function, which translates words in real time from one language to another, immediately selecting a similar font and replacing them.

To summarize:
Augmented reality imposes auxiliary objects on our environment. Mixed reality embeds virtual objects in the environment and adjusts them. Virtual reality creates its environment without interacting with the outside world.

History of occurrence

Let's start with the distant 1901, when the writer Frank Baum (author of the magical land of Oz, the harbinger of television, laptops and wireless) talked about the idea of ​​an electronic display that overlays on top of real life.

Time passed and after 50 years, Frank's idea was embodied in the Sensorama machine, which would now be called an art project. The device was either a table or a cabinet with stereo pictures, sound, smells, a vibrating chair and other effects, but it did not cause wide interest and was soon forgotten about it.


In the early 60s, computer graphics began to appear and develop.

In 1960, Boeing Verne Hudson and William Fetter created the first computer graphics systems, which are now called computer systems.

In 1962, Steve Russell, Martin Gretz, and Wayne Whitemann released the first computer video game, Spacewar.

In 1963, American scientist Ivan Sutherland created the first graphic editor, Sketchpad.
Around this time, Stanislav Lem, in one of his books, formulates and answers the question “how to create reality, which for sentient beings living in it, would not differ from normal reality, but obey other laws?”.

In 1964, General Motors introduced the DAC-1 computer-aided design system, developed jointly with IBM.
In the same year, a group of mathematicians led by N. N. Konstantinov created a computer mathematical model of the cat’s movement. And after 4 years, the first computer animation was made from it - the BESM-4 machine, executing a written program for solving
differential equations, painted the cartoon “Kitty” on an alphanumeric printer (yes, cats already captured the IT world).



And in the same 68th, it became possible to display computer images on the screen of a cathode ray tube.
Let us return a couple of years ago and separately note another invention of the already mentioned Ivan Sutherland. In 1966, the helicopter manufacturing company Bell Helicopter began the development of night-time flight control systems. The systems consisted of infrared cameras and receivers located on the pilot's helmet. The direction was called "Remote Reality" (Remote Reality). Professor Sutherland and one of his students, Bob Spoall, decided to replace infrared receivers with electronic tubes connected to a computer, thereby creating a prototype of the first video helmet.



Around the same time, in the late 60s, computer artist Myron Krueger introduced the concept of artificial reality.
After another 10 years - in 1977 - the Aspen Movie Card was created at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - a computer program that allows you to take a walk through the American city of Aspen. This program is considered the first visualization of virtual reality.
In the same year, Daniel Sandin, Richard Sayre, and a number of other EVL engineers invented a glove that could be used to transfer hand movement data to a computer. The device is called the Sayre Glove.



In 1982, Thomas Zimmerman (one of the founders of VPL Research) patented the installation of optical sensors in the glove. Zimmerman’s glove was designed to combine an acoustic guitar and a computer and transmitted data on the position of the fingers to the latter, and a computer program already converted the data to sound.

In 1989, virtual reality gloves finally reached the mass consumer. A device called the Nintendo Power Glove has released NES. However, it is not widespread.



The next big leap that influenced the development of BP occurred in the late 80s and early 90s.

In 1989, another founder of VPL Research, a programmer, futurologist, philosopher, musician, and many others, Jaron Lanier, introduced the term “virtual reality” itself.

In 1991, the Sega VR kit was announced, but it never reached the release - the testers were sick, dizzy, etc.

In 1994, Paul Milgrom and Fumio Kisino described the continuity "virtuality - reality" - the space between reality and virtuality, between which augmented reality (closer to reality) and augmented virtuality (closer to virtuality) are located.



Forte VFX1 helmet went on sale the same year. The device is solid, but the high price and a small number of available games did not allow it to become popular.



1995 Nintendo launches Virtual Boy game console. But she also fails. It is simply impossible to watch a red-black image on the screen for a long time, so the console was the first console that forced the player to take breaks so that his eyes could rest.



After that, many VR helmets still came out, but not one of them became massive. In the early 90s there were many films and books popularizing this industry. The topic of virtual reality was interesting and discussed. But despite this (apparently due to the loud failures of VR helmets) for almost 10 years no interesting developments in this area have appeared. In the 2000s, virtual reality moved into the field of computer games.

Today on the market there is a huge selection of BP glasses and helmets, you can find both inspired by the ideas of futurism ( TLpower G100 * ):



So simply “folk” glasses where you need to insert the phone - Google Cardboard VR BOX III 3 *



There are even self-assembled cardboard * under 5 inch phones.



About a new round of development of artificial reality and about modern developments we will tell in the next article.

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