Reflections on the DiVE and Recent Lectures

Coming into class today, I was skeptical of how useful immersive virtual environments could really be. After seeing the Dive in action today, however, I am very confident that immersive virtual environments have many applicable uses. For one, the Dive, as well as other immersive virtual environments, create a level of realism that is unparalleled by other virtualization software. Instead of watching an avatar interact with a virtual world in 2D, as you do with simple virtual environments, projects like the Dive allow the user to actually BE the avatar--to walk through a 3-D computer generated world in a way that is extremely realistic, and to interact with virtual object as if they were right in front of you in real life.

Because these projects have such a phenomenal, unmatched level of realism, they could be used in the future for many of the same projects as virtual environments are used for today. However, by using these highly immersive environments rather than basic virtual environments, the effects of the project using the immersive virtual environment would be much more pronounced. For example, a project designed to teach kids about chemistry using virtual environments could really benefit from an environment like those created by the Dive. With a regular virtual environment, yes children could view molecules and use a mouse to interact with their parts, and yes they would learn something by doing this. However, if you used an immersive virtual environment to do the same project, the kids would learn much more because instead of simply viewing molecules, they could journey inside and around them in three dimensions, as well as interact with their parts in full range of motion rather than the 4 directions a mouse allows.

One shortcoming I did notice with the Dive was that you couldn't walk very far in it without hitting a wall. To combat this, there was a joystick to move yourself forward in the environment. This solved the problem of moving large virtual distances in a confined physical space, but it did seem to be the only element detracting from realism. I think one way to fix this might be to make the floor a mechanical structure like a treadmill. That way, the user could move forward all they like, and the treadmill would constantly make sure they stay in the center. This would give the user the sensation of physically moving through a virtual environment, without all the pain of running into a wall.