Virtual reality experience in London; a glossary of common terms

Have you looked into virtual reality, and are you puzzled as to what is meant by location-based VR? Ever heard of monoscopic VR?

As virtual reality becomes more integrated into everyday life and a common way to spend an afternoon out with friends, more people are looking into this fascinating field of technology but becoming stumped by some of the more technical jargon, which is completely understandable!

At Navrtar, we have the expertise needed to not only answer our patrons' questions surrounding a virtual reality experience in London, but we also know enough about the subject to make learning about it fun and educational.

In the following glossary, you will see some of the most common terms used when exploring any virtual reality experience in London, so read on to learn more!

Location-based VR

This is what we offer with our virtual reality experience in London; a session that is based in a location that is outside of the home.

At Navrtar, we offer a free-roaming VR experience, which takes place at our arena in either London or Amsterdam. Our arenas are designed to improve on an experience that you could have at home using a VR headset, as it allows you to interact with the environment we have created and other people on your team.

Monoscopic VR

This is a type of VR that is captured using only one lens; it is used to create flat 360 degrees images and is less immersive than other VR types.

Stereoscopic VR

In this type of VR, different images are delivered to each of the eyes to create an environment that has more depth.

This is because the images used are captured with 2 lenses, which simulate the placement of your eyes, making stereoscopic VR the most immersive type.

Controllers

This is a piece of equipment that is held in your hand to allow you to interact with the surrounding VR environment.

If used and calibrated correctly, these can make you feel more present in the game. While they have not been introduced to virtual reality gaming in the arenas yet, there is ongoing work looking into developing controllers to incorporate texture and touch into the VR experience.

6 DOF and 3 DOF

These terms refer to the movement that the person wearing the headset can engage in; 6 degrees of freedom and 3 degrees of freedom.

With 6 DOF, the person wearing the headset can move backwards, forwards, up, down, left and right, thus creating a more immersive and realistic feel to the VR. With 3 DOF, the person wearing the device can look around in every direction in the VR environment, but cannot move around as much as they can if they were wearing a headset equipped with 6 DOF.

Mixed reality

This is a newer experience to the world of virtual reality gaming and is a mixture of VR and augmented reality (AR).

This is more common if the VR experience includes the need to wear a piece of headwear in the game, which the mixed reality can then use to display an object that alters when approached (VR) or one that stays constant as they move (AR). If you were trying to simulate being a killer robot from the future who was constantly assessing the surrounding environment, the view you would see would need both to be immersive.