Virtual Reality Moves to Real with Sensors and Digital Transformation
I was on a high-rise construction site 34-floors above the city. I was talking to the construction crew when a fight broke out. There was an explosion and the floor collapsed. I removed the virtual reality (VR) goggles and laughed. It was so real. The VR solutions provided an incredible experience, almost like being there. As good as my experience was, it was not reality. It was a controlled pre-programmed experience - a notional idea. Today, however, VR, sensors and sensory feedback technologies enable a notional idea to become reality – a Real-Reality. IoT sensors extend our physical senses beyond our physical reach. Haptic feedback systems enable us to physically feel distant objects and experience events, digital odors can be collected, profiled, transmitted and recreated locally on odor printers, 3D infrared scanners can capture and scale physical shapes and environments and transmit them anywhere to be used by 3D printers or in digital scenes. We can visualize, sen