International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887) Volume 166 – No.6, May 2017 4 Recent Trends and Challenges in Virtual Reality Sanjay S. Department of CSE, R.V College of Engineering, Bengaluru, Karnataka, 560040, India Girish Rao Salanke N. S. Assistant Professor, Department of CSE R.V College of Engineering, Bengaluru, Karnataka, 560040, India ABSTRACT This paper provides an overview of the Virtual Reality with emphasis on current trends of hardware and software technology, the processing and application issues. The first section of the paper presents a background of Virtual reality followed by the description and classification of the technology and the way the processing of those technologies takes place. Based on the observations from the current practice, the technologies are overviewed with an attempt to focus on areas it has evolved to nurture and trend the way users are characterized by it, followed by challenges of implementing new technology approaches in creating Virtual reality system. Finally, summarizing with issues related to engaging Virtual reality and on the future enhancement and developments Keywords Telepresence, Virtual Environment, Full Immersive Virtual Reality, Cyber sickness. 1. INTRODUCTION Virtual reality typically means ‘near-reality’, which is what we experience as Humans [1] [2]. It has been about 52 years since Ivan Sutherland formally presented the world his vision of “Ultimate Display” imitating the real world in every sense. Then huge number of individual refreshing technologies supporting this had emerged. The term “Virtual Reality” then came into place formally by Jason Lanier, who was trying to summate Sutherland’s vision in different concepts. This hyped many Researchers and Scholars to develop Technology and Algorithms to fulfil Sutherland’s Dream for many years, which was the First wave of Virtual Reality. For Past 10 years, the second wave of Virtual Reality introduced new variety of input and display devices, but many of them failed due to possible reasons like poor technology failing to deliver required End-user experience, robustness and low-fidelity [3]. Every season, new successful experiments dealing with existing Problems on VR’s Hardware and Software side are being exhibited. This Paper mainly focuses on the aspects of current trends of technological approaches to problems on development of the Virtual Reality system. The current paper is based on an Internet and Publication survey depicting overall comparison of technological approaches by various Researchers to current trends of Virtual Reality system. 2. TAXONOMY OF VIRTUAL REALITY ENVIRONMENT Virtual Reality is a system used to create a digital environment in which the user has the impression of being in that world with the ability to manipulate objects in that world and navigate through it. VR is capable of immersing the user in a computer generated world, be it, a city, a human body or your own mythological world. Using VR, you can map unexplored territory of the human imagination. A very important aspect of virtual reality is the environment in which it takes place because it determines the entire experience. So Virtual environment must be properly engineered with a view towards the aspect of Immersion. Human Beings often dealt for power to interact with the imaginary world with a mind-set of real world scenarios. This power of Immersion as well as interaction is called Telepresence. There are three levels of Telepresence which is often referred as Virtual Environment implementations: 1. Semi-Immersive Virtual Reality: Basically consist of large display system or projection systems with a wider field of view. With this concept, it can increase the feeling of immersion experienced by the user. This gives the user a partial feel of immersion but has a prominent benefit in educational applications as it allows simultaneous experience of the Virtual Environment that is not available with Full Immersive VR. 2. Full Immersive Virtual Reality: Basically consist of Head Mounted Display or Head- coupled display such as a Binocular Omni-Orientation Monitor or BOOM. This projects the most direct experience of Virtual Environment. It is the most widely known VR implementation. We are going to discuss the technologies involved in detail in the next section. 3. CAVE Immersive Virtual Reality: Basically consists of down projection floor, tracking sensors in the walls, Rear projection walls. This is like a combination of Semi Immersive and Full immersive VR where the user wearing a head mounted display (HMD) experiences Stereoscopy, displaying a three dimensional display. Here the user is shown two images, one for each eye for which the brain instigates and combines into one image. 4. Distributed/Collaborative Virtual Environment: Basically consist of a network. Here there will be simulated world running on several computers which are network connected and the users are able to share the same virtual world. The most widely popular and rapidly growly VR is the Full Immersive VR, which the industries have caught, hold by the demand from Customer centric view point of Entertainment. 3. TECHNOLOGY OF FULL IMMERSIVE VIRTUAL REALITY Full immersive VR has changed the way many users project their work. This is used in several areas like Automobile Industry reviewing a critical application through Telepresence via Head Mounted display and Data Glove, Gaming industry switching the way of gaming to Full Immersive VR via HMD that has scaled up a huge demand. So what is the technology approach used in current HMD and Data glove that are both