This class time was the first time for me to get really exposed to the Virtual Reality experience. Overall, I was very impressed about how the technology could “fool” human brain.   Most of the VR system really did a great job on taking me into different world that I had never been before, and some of them really amazed me that I wanted to buy one for my own.

For my experiences on each of the system, I found two systems that worked pretty well for me: Oculus Rift & HTC Vibe. Both of them had really smooth head tracking features and full spherical range of vision that really made me feel like I am physically in that graphic world. Moreover, the 3D sound that changes volume of object sounds as I turn my head also made the scene more realistic. VIBE felt even more real as it tracks and follows my movement. One thing did not worked well for me was the hand-held controllers that limited my hand movements; trying to grab or use graphic objects with controller was somewhat difficult.

Other than PC or workstation based VR system, there were mobile VR system based on the smartphone applications such as ViewMaster, Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear VR. What I liked about these systems was freedom of movement, as they were wireless, and the portability of the system; all you need to have is the smartphone and the VR head mount. One of the scenes that I enjoyed was the VR flying demo on Google Cardboard app that made me felt like flying in real world. The drawbacks for mobile VR systems, however, was the small viewing angle; I felt like looking through telescope, as the screen of smartphone was not large enough to cover all of human viewing angle.

As overall experience, there were four main factors that “fooled” my brain as if I was physically in the VR machine’s graphic world: Full range of vision, 3D sound, and the quality of 3D graphics, and the smoothness of head tracking. It was quite out of my expectation that the screen resolution did not really affect much the “feel” of VR experience. However, the better the quality of 3D graphics along with full spherical range of vision and 3D sound tracking my head turning, the VR machines did great job “fooling” my brain.