How intriguing the experience becomes when you connect your smartphone with a VR headset only to replace your physical surroundings? Or what about watching a movie or playing a video game on a 3D display? Well, these abilities are just a couple of examples of immersive technologies! From developing games to advertising agencies or construction companies, the use of immersive technologies like AR and VR is recently taking the world by storm. You might think that immersive technology is a new concept! But it is not, owing to what the world has witnessed ever since the 1960s with the AR and VR taking hidden places in scientific pieces of research! Want to know more about it? Well, this is our guide to help you get more familiar with how this technology is going to change the world by leaps and bounds in the near future.
What do you mean by immersive technology?
The role of the immersive technology is to emulate the physical world with the help of the simulated or digital world, and thus creates a sense of immersion. Immersive technologies can leverage a 360 sphere or space. While some of its types overlap the digital images and thus extend the reality, others make a whole new reality by emulating the surrounding entirely. There are different types of this technology that you need to know – 360, VR, AR, MR, and XR. To know in brief, keep reading on.
- 360 – It’s the most common type which is used in the social media platforms or other applications.
- VR – VR has become a buzzword over the last couple of years. There are different types of VR, including 360 vs. 360 VR, True VR, Mobile VR, and 360 VR vs. In-VR.
- AR – We have got quite a lot of examples of it, both brilliant and horrifying. It’s a different type of immersive technology where some digital images are atop of the real world.
- MR – MR is a combination of VR and AR. The use of an MR headset has already seen the light of the day! We hope this technology is going to be a buzzword within the next couple of years!
- XR – The full spectrum of immersive technologies, i.e., VR, AR, and MR, is termed as XR or Extended Reality.
Uses of Immersive Technology
Whether you read Sci-Fi books or watch Sci-Fi movies, the uses of immersive technology have already seen the light of the day in a countless number of ways. To know more about its uses, read on.
Advertisement and Marketing
It is a while now, ever since the advertisement industry has gone through major technological shifts. Immersive advertising has entirely been a new ad format leveraging the technology which still using the recent world’s ad channels. The new advertising technology makes the best use the sensory inputs of the mobile phones such as accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer.
The sensory inputs give the allowance to the immersive ads to respond to the device motion. Since these kinds of ads are really interactive, they can initiate and even sustain advertising engagement. Other uses of immersive technologies in advertising and marketing are immersive web applications, experimental marketing, shopping tools, and more.
Education
Education can get massive benefits from this technology. With it, students are able to have field trips in VR from the classrooms. With the help of AR and MR, students can also learn about the human body. Students can also get a clear idea about how each organ functions with the help of digital images.
Healthcare
The healthcare industry has always got its own share of benefits from the effective use of immersive technology. Recent studies indicate that healthcare providers and doctors have discovered a unique approach of this technology towards detecting the patient’s pain, since immersing them in a particular experience can distract them from whatever is going on! Surgery simulation is also done with the best use of this technology.
Gaming
Immersive technology has been seen making a comeback and playing a massive role across multiple sectors. And when it comes to the gaming industry, its role is quite a massive one. Over the past couple of decades, graphics in gaming has technically got developed drastically. Since the world of gaming has already been one of the first movers of this technology, immersive technology and gaming both go hand in hand. With the launch of high-end consoles and video games, immersive technologies add prominence in the world of gaming!
Art
Upon visiting a museum, you might always like the idea of feeling connected with the artist in the museum. And this would always be a great thing, isn’t it? That’s what this technology does it for you! It revitalizes the old artworks in a museum into the virtual space. This means, as a visitor, you no longer require standing in the queue amongst people to stare at a painting from a long distance! Additionally, artists are also getting a newer creativity canvas to reach youngsters who are acquainted with technology!
Giving the Closure
With all the aforementioned benefits, we have already seen how immersive technology is going to be a buzzword in the next couple of years! The technology is opening up a wide range of opportunities for the world to see things like never before.