Eleanor Roosevelt once said that life is made to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly, and without fear for newer and richer experience. Life experiences differ from one person to another, from one place to the other.
In planning your next getaway or activity together with yourself or your loved ones, you should consider experiencing precious moments with the aid of virtual reality (VR). VR brings the places and activities to you, with the comfort of your home or anywhere in the world.
You can immerse and interact with 3D worlds you never thought possible before. Here are some ways VR creates unforgettable experiences for you:
Travel the World with VR Studio
Nowadays, putting on a VR can mean flying to another country and another dimension full of different cultures, sceneries, and people. VR allows you to expand your horizon, to see beyond yourself and into the world.
An example of this is the National Geographic Virtual Reality Studio. With this VR studio, viewers go alongside Nat Geo explorers, photographer, and storytellers like going on assignment with photographers and filmmakers Brian Skerry and Renan Ozturk.
Nat Geo takes the viewers in an authentic out-of-this-world experience through ‘Explorer,’ wherein they simulated how to build a home on the Red Planet. In another VR, viewers experience what it feels like flying over the cliffs of Victoria Falls in Zambia, Africa.
On a more practical application of VR in the travel industry, many hotels and travel companies employ VR to give customers a taste of what they can expect. They provide digital versions of their room choices. Sometimes, they add options to allow viewers to navigate to nearby attractions such as the top of Eiffel Tower and Maldives beaches. This marketing strategy enables people to have an informed decision before renting a room.
Hone Your Skills with VR Training
Personal development is one of the fundamental responsibility of each person. One should improve in whichever field the person participates. Still, it is with regret that life skills training can get experience or inaccessible. But nowadays, VR is changing this dynamic.
VR helps encourage compliance, one of the primary motivators for electronic learning, from its user as it turns a passive learning experience into an active learning experience. Another factor for increased compliance is that VR can provide off-the-shelf education instead of having to meet someone for the first time and spending time getting comfortable with your mentor.
VR skills training can also give the user authentic and immediate feedback from the session. This feedback system is highly relevant to the user, and this system helps the trainee become more immersed compared to face to face oriented training wherein there are possible delays of feedback from the mentor.
An example of this useful skills training is Holoroom How To by Lowe’s Innovation Labs. They provide Do It Yourself skills training classes, like how to tile a shower, to people using the HTC Vive headsets. There is also the “Holoroom How To Red Vest” that helps employees become better at serving customers.
Level Up Your Shopping Experience
Some people deem shopping as a therapeutic activity. Others regard shopping as a necessary thing to get what they need and want. Whatever reason you have for shopping, VR provides a fresh avenue to experience this activity in a different light.
Gone are the poorly lit dressings rooms, lack of information about the price and sizes of items, and the pushy to annoying salespeople. Captivating and interactive experiences replace these distractions from the usually relaxing and peaceful walk and browsing products.
There is a Mastercard and Swarovski’s VR app that allows users to enter a decorated home. Here, consumers can peruse the various pieces inside the house and learn the stories of the items. Descriptions, pricing, and creation stories about the products are available for the consumers.
Another example of an enhanced retail experience is Timberland’s virtual fitting room. The company partnered with Kinect and digital signage technology to equip passersby with the ability to try on pieces of clothing and footwear virtually using hand gestures.
There are also VR custom made goods. Nike’s Makers’ Experience used object tracking, projection technology, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, and more to allow viewing of customized designs on their sneakers. The customers can get the finished products after an hour.
Relive Experiences via VR
One of the early features of VR allowed users to get immersed in a different world through movies and videos. This feature is still up and running, and being continuously developed.
Elton John and his team utilized VR during the press conference of his retirement. Using the Samsung Gear headset, they gave instructions for the journalists present in the event. When the journalists entered the experience, Elton John’s famous and iconic moments, such as his Dodger Stadium stage performance, flashed before the reporters’ eyes. The use of VR in the event allowed for an additional emotional impact and a sense of retrospection to the audience.
This year, Facebook announced the company’s VR projects such as VR memories. In this feature, users can take old photos and leverage computer vision that will turn the flat 2D images and videos into spatial point clouds. Through this conversion, Facebook will create point clouds that will give the user an ethereal sense of the photo locations. It will be like a photo album coming to life, a Facebook executive noted.
There are also commercially available VR-geared cameras and all-in-one VR headsets such as the Lenovo Mirage Solo VR headset. This device uses Google’s Daydream VR platform to capture images and videos in 3D. This camera can essentially shoot what’s in front of it, like your eyes.
Conclusion
Be it for reliving memories, therapeutic shopping, going places, or developing skills, VR undoubtedly provides a whole new platform for experiencing life. VR equips its user of a sense of unlimitedness and freedom from the usual surroundings. You can create even more unforgettable experiences with the use of VR today.
References:
https://www.cmo.com/features/articles/2018/4/12/5-creative-uses-of-virtual-reality.html#gs.bWUV1jg
https://www.learninglight.com/virtual-reality-learning-development/