A survey on virtual reality

Virtual reality (VR) is a scientific method and technology created during the exploration of the nature by human beings to understand, simulate, and better adapt and use the nature. Based on the analysis on the whole process of VR, this paper presents different categories of VR problems and a type of theoretical expression, and abstracts three kinds of scientific and technical problems in VR field. On the basis of foresaid content, this paper also studies current major research objectives, research results and development trend of VR in the aspects of VR modeling method, VR representation technology, human-machine interaction and devices, VR development suites and supporting infrastructure, as well as VR applications. Finally, several theoretical and technical problems that need to be further studied and solved are addressed. Supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2009CB320805), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 60533070, 60503066), and the National High-Tech Research & Development Program of China (Grant Nos. 2006AA01Z333, 2006AA01Z311)