Virtual reality is one of the most innovative technologies currently under the public microscope. It’s no surprise that VR is quickly becoming one of the hot topics of the world, not just the tech sectors. Thanks to the development of a wide range of Apps, and the availability of cardboard VR headsets, virtual reality is definitely in the hot seat.
Whilst there are a lot of technical terms involved with virtual reality that you’ll never need to know, you should make sure that you get to grips with these 5 essential phrases. Understanding these terms can help you to understand exactly how virtual reality works and help you to enjoy even the most complicated VR experiences.

Understanding Virtual Reality – 5 Key Terms

You might not need to understand how virtual reality works to enjoy it, but understanding a few key terms will be able to make sure that you can enjoy a wider range of apps in the future. This is particularly true as the number of 360O videos are created, and you need to view specific areas of the content.
These important phrases and terms are the key to understanding how you can make the most of your VR head mounted displays (HMDs).

1. Rotational Tracking – This is the ability of the VR device to track the orientation of your head, or the direction in which you are looking. This is generally done using a gyroscope or motion sensors, which are in-built into most mobile devices. This tracker assumes that your head is pivoted to a single point, and changes the Apps’ viewpoint based on that tracking.

Rotational tracking tracks three different axes of your head (and the device’s) positioning – your Pitch, Yaw and Roll.

2. Positional Tracking – This is the ability of the cardboard VR headset and the mobile device to track your head movement within a 3D space. Whilst rotational tracking only sense the direction in which your head is turned, positional tracking allows the VR headset to detect whether you are kneeling, sitting, leaning or jumping. This is normally tracked by the camera attached to your mobile device.

This feature tracks your head movement alongside three axes, X, Y and Z.

3. Room-Scale Tracking – This is a simple extension of positional tracking. Room-scale tracking allows the headset to track your movement within a fixed space. You can move around as you would normally without breaking immersion. Many premium headsets, such as the HTC Vive come with sensors which you need to place on opposite corners of a room.

4. Frames Per Second (FPS) – Most of you will already be familiar with this term. This is the rate at which your screen refreshes. For example, 60fps means that your screen refreshes 60 times every second. Maintaining a steady FPS is extremely important for VR, as otherwise you will suffer a disjointed, ‘laggy’ and potentially nausea-inducing experience.

Although 60fps is acceptable, the VR industry is currently moving towards a 120frp rate to provide a smooth and seamless experience every time.

5. Field Of View (FOV) – Humans normally have a FOV which spans 220 degrees. That means that, any time, we have a 220O view of the world. When you wear any kind of VR headset, this drops considerably. However, if you want to experience as close to reality as possible, then the VR industry needs to aim for a 220 degree view in their VR apps.

For An Affordable VR Experience, Choose A Cardboard VR Headset

As we said, you don’t necessarily need to understand these terms in order to make the most of cardboard VR headsets, but it will be useful when choosing your app settings and interacting with apps in the future.
Virtual reality is one of the biggest and best technologies available to app developers; not only is it the future of entertainment, it will also be the future of marketing as well. For more information on our cardboard VR headsets, or to get your own printed today, get in touch with our team on 0209 133 0824.