BMW virtual reality prototype
What is virtual reality?
Virtual Reality is immersion to a completely new and digital world through a device. Unlike the Augmented Reality, here there is no complement to the normal reality in which we all live, but the person who uses the device is submerged in a parallel reality that only it perceives. This world is the product of complex programming algorithms.
Virtual Reality Device in action.
To understand that so immersed is the virtual reality in the industry, it is crucial to see it in numbers. It is estimated that this technology is of the key points in the field of digital transformation in companies and, to make sense of the role that it has today, investment for current companies is around EUR 15 billion. In turn, it is estimated that about 50% of the large companies considered in Europe have already carried out applications of this technology.
But... What are these applications?
Undoubtedly, the most influential and growing industry in recent years derived from virtual reality is the entertainment industry. Where major video game companies sought the way to maximize the player's experience with helmets or glasses that plunge him into a new world. They found virtual reality as an excellent market opportunity: Don't run a player through a screen anymore, now you're the player inside the same.
To classify the type of applications this technology has, there are two major categories: training applications or practical applications.
The training-related applications came to replace the simulations done through a computer with virtual and more real experiences. It is the same simulation at last, but the added value that brings this technology is the experience to which the human brain is undergoing, thus learning from the real interaction of what is being simulated. Common training applications with virtual reality can be: military training (simulation of weapon use), in the field of medicine (simulation of complex operations) and also in the aerocommercial industry (flight simulations).
The applications that personally draw the most attention to me are practical applications. Today there are companies that revolutionized their retail business through virtual reality. That is, today it is no longer necessary to go shopping personally because one can simulate the experience virtually and then it is expected to send the product in question. There are malls or supermarkets with their locations in the digital world. They were also revolutionizing marketing campaigns offering virtual tours to get to know the product in question. And there are even more interesting and disruptive cases in the manufacturing industry: the companies Boeing and Ford design their prototypes with virtual reality.
Prototype design Ford with virtual reality.
Of course, these companies like Ford or Boeing don't use virtual reality because it's fun or because it makes them see futuristics, but yes has tangible benefits: Ford reported that the design of prototypes under this tool increased productivity in the design and engineering department. That is, engineers could more easily follow car modeling after virtual design, make decisions and change parts instantly to evaluate different scenarios and could also do it remotely from any part of the world. This package of advantages reduced design and manufacturing times, and as it is said in the syringe: time is money. So it also allowed to reduce the costs associated with production and, a given not less, to save time also if increased productive rhythm. As if all this was little, it also improved the working climate, as indicators showed that, after the implementation of the virtual manufacturing program, 70% of the work accidents were reduced.
What gives you the future of virtual reality?
In my opinion, these technologies have a long way to go. What you can see today is just the beginning. As in the case of Ford, they are first the big companies that can take advantage of the incredible advantages these technologies offer. As technologies thrive and their advantages become more popular, they will be more accessible to companies of all sizes; anyway, there are projections that indicate that, for the end of the decade, the total virtual reality market would approach the $200 billion.
As a method of conclusion, I think the pandemic brought things that came to stay. Some classes will remain online and some companies will flexibilize their regimes for home-office mode forever. At the moment of thinking how these experiences can be improved This type of technology cannot be put aside: I do not see it impossible for educational institutions to give their students in the future or for companies to give their employees a virtual reality centre. And this idea brings me a utopian question to reflect: do you imagine a life in which people spend more time connected to a virtual world than to the real world?
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