VR Software

In the previous chapter we have looked at the various hardware elements associated with virtual reality (VR) systems, which included head-mounted displays (HMDs), mice, trackers, gloves, projectors, shutter glasses, and host computers. Software is now required to integrate these into a coherent system that will enable a user to navigate and interact with a virtual environment (VE). This is no mean task, because like all computer graphics applications, the software is application specific. For instance, a computer-aided design (CAD) system requires specific software tools and an appropriate interface to support the tasks required for two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) engineering designs. Similarly, a 3D computer animation system requires special tools for the modelling, animation, and rendering everything from dinosaurs to the Titanic. However, even though CAD and computer animation are both concerned with 3D objects, their requirements are totally different, and has resulted in many individual commercial software systems supporting both areas.