scope of sensory engagement in virtual reality systems

The sensory scope of Virtual Reality systems is determined by how many of the sensory mechanisms are actively involved. The number might be weighted by whether the senses included are "high bandwidth" or "low data processing potential" by design. Vision, hearing and touch have a higher capacity for quick, complex transferral and thus can be viewed as high bandwidth senses for communication between humans and computers. Thus it is no surprise that these three senses have dominated Virtual Reality (VR) systems. In comparison, the senses of taste and smell are relatively low bandwidth senses and few Virtual Reality (VR) systems engage them. The sensory scale of Virtual Reality systems is the range of sensory data processing potential that is engaged by communication between human beings and computing systems. This spans both the size of the signal relative to total human sensation and the realism of that signal. See also: 360 Degree Virtual Tours relates to these subjects as well.

Parallax vision comes from the fact that human eyes see actual things from two intersecting angles. Eye muscles and neural processing of one's brain function synergistically to combine these two different images into perception a single picture with three dimensions. Muscles of each eye change the shape of each the lens to change the focus distance of the object viewed. Other muscles change the orientations of the eyes so that lines of vision from both eyes intersect at that same distance. In real world vision, these operations of the two muscles work together. In virtual reality, they may not match. When pictures are shown at great distances, then the display size required for immersion is overly large and it is challenging to present different pictures to one's eyes. When images are displayed near to the eyes extremely high picture resolution is needed and the operations of the two muscles of one's eyes tend to conflict. Virtual Tours Portland, Oregon deals with related topics.

Additional discussion at Virtual Dating .