Lecture 1—Introduction

During this lecture, we are going to first ponder about the nature of Virtual reality trying to determine a suitable definition of this concept. We will discuss some of the defining properties of Virtual Environments (VE) and Virtual Reality (VR), which set them apart from other similar media such as 3D video for example. Special attention will be devoted to concepts of immersion and interactivity, two very important terms, essential for understanding VR. Finally, we are going to discuss the general properties shared by all VR systems.