What is the difference between VR and AR?
Have you ever wanted to go to a different world, or see a digital animal appear in front of you as if it were real? Today, this is not only possible in science fiction movies with Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.
Virtual Reality (VR) refers to technologies that fully immerse a user in a simulated digital environment, possible when using a specialized headset. On the other hand, Augmented Reality (AR) differs by enhancing the real world, overlaying digital content onto your physical environment. So, Augmented Reality adds to the real world, while VR is meant to almost immerse you into another world.
For VR these environments can imitate real-world settings or create entirely new worlds, allowing users to interact with digital elements as if they are physically in them. AR can work through smartphones, tablets, or smart glasses that add images, data, or instructions on top of what you see. A popular example are apps that let you preview furniture in your home before buying it or photo filters in social media apps like SnapChat.
Popular VR headsets include the Meta Quest 2 or the Sony VR2, but there are many types of virtual reality headset with different capabilities, clarity, field of view, etc. Both technologies are not 'new' but they are growing and evolving currently in education, gaming, and even professional fields like medicine and design.
History
Although ideas of altered perception appear in early science fiction, actual work towards this goal began in the mid-20th century. In 1968, a computer scientist named Ivan Sutherland and his student Bob Sproull developed one of the first head-mounted displays called the Sword of Damocles which could project simple computer-generated graphics. This prototype laid the early groundwork for both VR and early AR research.
By the 1980s we saw the first commercial VR systems and the coining of the term “virtual reality”. In the 2010s, lightweight consumer headsets grew in popularity because of companies like Oculus who helped bring VR into gaming and consumer markets. Smartphones equipped with powerful processors and cameras popularized AR applications like mobile games and utility tools which also began to arise.
AR & VR Today:
Today, AR and VR are both steadily evolving and growing in popularity. Institutions worldwide are integrating AR/VR into their curricula more and more, reshaping classrooms and professional training as we know it. Immersive tools now help students explore difficult concepts firsthand, like virtual chemistry labs, historical simulations and even flight simulators. As of 2024, about 30% of universities offer VR courses, and educational deployments of VR have grown sharply.
AR and VR are also now valuable in medical training, patient rehabilitation, and surgical planning. For example, AR guided systems have enabled surgeons to overlay imaging data during operations; and VR is used more for therapeutic environments and training scenarios. So both are currently being used as tools to help drive efficiency improvements and skill retention in humans.
Conclusion
As artificial intelligence mature, AR and VR experiences will become more responsive and personalized, possibly blurring the lines between physical and digital interaction. And this is what people want! Immersive technology markets are projected to expand significantly into the 2030s with broader use of lightweight AR glasses and more advanced VR systems opening new doors in collaboration, remote work, and everyday computing.
Sources List:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality
- https://www.coursera.org/articles/augmented-reality-vs-virtual-reality
- https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/tech-tips-and-tricks/virtual-reality-vs-augmented-reality.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Sutherland%27s_head-mounted_3D_display
- https://virtualspeech.com/blog/history-of-vr
- https://treeview.studio/blog/ar-vr-mr-xr-metaverse-spatial-computing-industry-stats
Top comments (0)