Since the hype began in the middle 1980s, virtual reality (VR) has captivated public interest with pictures of people wearing enormous goggles and sensors-laden gloves. The technologies used to immerse people in a computer - generated world will, however, change radically during the coming decade, making the begoggled cybernaut as quaint an image as the undersea explorer in a heavy metal diving helmet.

The important thing about VR is that it does rather than how its effects are achieved: it permits people to behave as if they were somewhere they are not. That place may be a computational fiction or a recreated environment from another place or time. VR transports perceptions by appealing to several senses-- sight, hearing and touch--and by presenting images that respond immediately to one’s movements. The techniques for creating this illusion differ depending on the kind of place being visited and what a user want to do while there. A pilot in a flight simulator, for example, might need hydraulic actuators to simulate banks and forms, whereas a molecular biologist exploring the bonds between molecules might need particularly fine position sensors and mechanisms to simulate the “feel” of interatomic forces.

自從本世紀八十年代中期以來，虛擬現(xiàn)實就開始強烈地吸引著公眾的興趣，人們戴著巨大的頭盔觀望鏡和布滿感應(yīng)器的手套。技術(shù)曾經(jīng)使人們沉浸于一個電腦主宰的世界之中， 然而，今后的十幾年間，將產(chǎn)生巨大的變化，從而使得戴著頭盔觀望鏡的賽百空間遨游者的形象十分時髦，就象戴著沉重的潛海頭盔的海底探險者一樣。

對虛擬現(xiàn)實而言，重要的是它所產(chǎn)生的什么樣的效果，而不是它是如何產(chǎn)生這些效果的。虛擬現(xiàn)實能使人們感到自己好像處于一個他們從未到過的境界之中。這種境界似乎是計算機文藝創(chuàng)作出來的，也可能是從另一時間、空間再創(chuàng)造而成的。虛擬現(xiàn)實通過同時刺激幾種感覺，如視覺、聽覺、觸覺，并通過人對各種運動迅速做出反應(yīng)的反應(yīng)，來展示形象的。

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