Real virtuality: a step change from virtual reality

Humans perceive the world with all five senses: visuals, audio, smell, touch and taste. Crossmodal effects, i.e. the interaction of the senses, can have a major influence on how environments are being perceived, even to the extent that large amounts of detail of one sense may be ignored when in the presence of other more dominant sensory inputs. Real Virtuality environments (also known as there-reality#8482;) are true high-fidelity multi-sensory virtual environments which provide the same perceptual response from viewers as if they were actually present, or "there" in the real scene being portrayed. Unlike traditional virtual reality environments, Real Virtuality allows all five senses to be stimulated concurrently in a natural way. This paper gives an overview of Real Virtuality, describes how such a system may be achieved, and shows why Real Virtuality is indeed a step-change from current virtual reality systems.