VIRTUAL REALITY IS WELL KNOWN for its use with flight simulators and games. However, these are only two of the many ways virtual reality is being used today. This article will summarize how virtual reality is used in medicine, architecture, weather simulation, chemistry and the visualization of voxel data. In addition, links to web pages where other uses of virtual reality are detailed are included at the end of this article.

Mark Billinghurst, at the Hit Lab in Washington, has developed a prototype surgical assistant for simulation of paranasal surgery. During a simulated operation the system provides vocal and visual feedback to the user, and warns the surgeon when a dangerous action is about to take place. In addition to training, the expert assistant can be used during the actual operation to provide feedback and guidance. This is very useful when the surgeon’s awareness of the situation is limited due to complex anatamoy.

Finally, Billinghurst and his associates are working at developing a toolkit for physicians which will help them create their own expert assistants for other types of surgery.

The department of visualization and virtual reality at the IGD University in Germany has developed a program that uses radiosity and raytracing to simulate light. This virtual reality program has applications in the area of architecture and light engineering. 

With light simulation architects can examine how outdoor light will fall inside and outside their building before it is built. If the lighting needs to be redesigned, the architect can redesign the building on the computer and examine the new outdoor light effects.

In addition to outdoor light, lighting engineers use virtual reality to examine the effects of point lights, spotlights and other indoor light sources. An interior designer could examine how light will affect different room arrangements.

Fraunhaufer-IGD has developed a visualization system for weather forecasting called "TriVis". TriVis accepts data from meteorological services such as satellite data, statistically corrected forecast data, precipitation data and fronts information. It then analyzes this data and uses fractal functions to create projections of storm systems. Using TriVis to visualize artificial clouds, meteorologists can predict weather with increased accuracy. 

The data gathered and analyzed by the TriVis system is used by television weather reporters to show their audiences storm systems. TriVis has been used in television weather forecasts since 1993.

Real Mol is a program that uses virtual reality to show molecular models in an interactive, immersive environment. The scientist who uses the program wears a cyberglove and a head mounted display to interact with the molecular system. Using RealMol scientists can move molecules or protein chains to create new molecules. This is useful in fields such as drug design. 

RealMol displays molecules in three ways: ball and stick model, stick model and CPK model. The molecules are rendered through a molecular dynamics simulation program.

ISVAS is an interactive software program that is utilized to analyze 3D and voxel data. It was developed by Fraunhofer-LBF. Using this program, scientists can analyze vector or scalar values. 

A similar program was used by students at UCSD to analyze the voxel data obtained when observing the solar winds. The image at left is a small version of the visualisation of the voxel data that depicts the solar wind patterns.

Flight Simulator 

Museums and Cultural Heritage

Financial Data

Training: Hubble Telescope

On the Net: VR Resources

Loren Lones, graduate student, San Diego State University
Artwork by Lance Lones