How is Virtual Reality Used?

There are numerous ways virtual reality can be used which provide enormous benefits to us. These include:

  • Healthcare/surgery
  • Military
  • Architecture
  • Art
  • Entertainment
  • Education
  • Business
  • The media
  • Sport
  • Rehabilitation/treatment of phobias

The list of applications for VR is endless. Virtual reality may have been considered an overnight sensation but it has been re-invented under the term ‘virtual environments’ and is proving to be useful in ways which had never been previously considered.

VR variety of applications

Medicine is one of the biggest beneficiaries with the development of surgery simulation. This is often used as a training aid and enables the surgeon to perform an operation on a ‘virtual patient’ or to see inside the human body. It is also used as a diagnostic tool in that it provides a more detail view of the human body compared to X-rays and scans.

Another popular use of virtual reality is aviation: a three dimensional aircraft can be designed which allows the designer to test their prototype without having to have several versions – which are time consuming and costly.

It is cheaper and easier to make changes to the simulation rather than having to design and build a new aircraft.

Games, surgery and flight simulators are the most well known uses of virtual reality but other, lesser well known applications include:

  • Visualisations, e.g. geographical
  • Study and treatment of addictions
  • Weather forecasting
  • Historical, e.g. re-creating ancient civilisations
  • Data analysis, e.g. financial data

There may be additional applications which we have not heard about.