Virtual Reality is one of the technologies with the highest projected potential for growth. According to the latest forecasts from IDC Research (2018), investment in VR and AR will multiply 21-fold over the next four years, reaching 15.5 billion euros by 2022.

Virtual reality was first introduced through science fiction and was perhaps popularized best through Star Trek: The Next Generation and its Holodeck, in which participants are able to interact with virtual environments for education, fun, and entertainment. While this environment often led to some mishaps, the virtual reality presently available to us and the future of VR does not have those risks.

Augmented reality (AR) uses live video or a user’s current environment with the help of digital information to create semi-altered reality virtual objects overlayed onto the real-world environment. This is seen in some of the popular mobile games like Pokemon Go, where users can interact with characters on their smartphones in real-world environments. To experience AR you need either a mobile phone or an AR headset.

Mixed reality (MR) combines virtual and real worlds to create new environments, visualizations, and other digital objects where the user can co-exist and interact with objects in these worlds in real-time. In other words, unlike AR’s overlays, virtual objects are anchored in the real world.

Virtual reality (VR) is a seemingly real, digital environment that can be interacted with using special equipment, such as a virtual reality helmet or headset.

The amount of VR users in the US is $57.4 million (eMarketer, 2020)

VR and AR investments were estimated to be $915 million in 2020 (Superdata, 2020)

91% of businesses are already leveraging or planning to adopt VR or AR technology (TechRepublic, 2020)

The main goal of virtual reality technology in education and training is to make it as effective as exciting and to change the way people learn. We’ve seen a large number of startups and established education companies offering packaged experiences and services geared toward schools.

Virtual education is already popular in K-12, higher education, and vocational training and will be even more widespread in the future of virtual reality.

Higher education, which is predicted to get a larger revenue share, has major VR applications such as student recruitment, immersive learning, and fundraising.

According to a Harward business study, medical students who have had the opportunity to be trained using VR can perform certain procedures faster and more accurately than their peers trained using traditional methods.

Virtual reality applications, for instance, simulating the driving process in heavy urban traffic, prepare people for real roads, providing base knowledge and experiences for safe driving. NIX engineers also have personal accomplishments—a car simulator that offers an immersive experience of the driving process.

VR in Manufacturing

The use of virtual technology in manufacturing provides significant improvements in cost, time, and quality. Product designers and engineers are able to explore options that in the past would have been prohibitively expensive or time-consuming.

Since 2014, Ford has hired virtual reality specialists to lead engineers in designing and building entire vehicles, including autonomous vehicles, in a virtual environment. Today, Ford has a mandatory, multifunctional VR review for all vehicles that go into production.

Imagine machinery equipment training, conducted with the help of virtual reality technology. The main purpose of such training is to increase the skills of the machine operators. In many countries you can start working as an operator only after passing an official exam and obtaining the necessary license; however, a license is not always the best indicator of manual skills. With new technology, in an environment in which even the slightest mistake is very costly, companies can be provided with a safe, easy, and relatively inexpensive way to train personnel.

Find out more about NIX use cases of VR technology in our article.

VR in Healthcare

Similarly, medicine, and especially emergency medicine, is not an environment where there is room for mistakes. Once they are put into a lifelike VR scenario, medical personnel can master all the needed skills and train every procedure with a realistic simulation of every emergency event from CPR to lumbar punctures. In addition to realistic graphics, this training can be equipped with a program that will evaluate the success of the training, mark all mistakes, and give advice on how to avoid them in the future.

Medical training isn’t the only place where virtual reality technology is high. Mental treatment and disease awareness are also important aspects of VR in Healthcare.

The ability of VR to place a person in any environment using controlled simulation creates an excellent instrument for physical and psychological treatment and pain management. Therapists already use VR in their practice to treating PTSD, anxiety, and phobias. VR takes its part in rehabilitation for patients who survived strokes, brain injuries, or other traumas. Gamification of the process plays a role here, which allows the patient to stay focused and place them in a familiar environment with reproduction of routines, such as driving, cooking, or other activities, allowing them to restore motor functions quickly.VR in Gaming

There is no point in hiding the fact that gaming is probably the first thing the average person associates with the future of virtual reality. And it’s not surprising, because the market size of the VR gaming industry is growing at a fast pace.

On the other hand, the current position of virtual reality technology in gaming is influenced by COVID-19, which keeps potential consumers at home, and consequently, they are more willing to engage in games, which is a boon for the market.

At times, the ideas realized in the gaming sector with virtual reality are much more captivating with their fantasy and progress than those in other areas. It is because of this that experts see potential in the gaming industry for VR, perhaps in the first place.