Virtual Reality (VR)

Imaginanet designs apps with new inmersive technology

The Web Virtual Reality

This last years, the Internet technology have started to grow up and the search engines to allow a number of innovative scenarios to see the light. Graphics and technological networks have increased their performance in computers and mobile phones. In the last 3 years new VR helmets have been prepared and new libraries have been developed, also browsers have included new definitions of how a web could contribute with inmersive displays. In a world were we are constantly conected, there are advantages that provide the new VR based browsers, opposite to the traditional ones. The developers can easily integrate the existing tools, libraries and frameworks
in their sites, and the users can benefit from it, among other things, because of the easy access, new perspectives, and discoveries.

Therefore, here there are 3 types of VR experiences:

Hyper-immersive

Hyper-immersive is how the wearables are called. This are devices that the users installed in themselves and that help to have a full sensory experience. The allow to live another reality.

POV Documentary

This are contributing applications, in which the user is transported to places where they could not go to in any other way.

Gamified experience

Applications that include gaming virtual reality experiences. Normally, a mission is given to the users and they have to fulfill them by fighting against enemies or any other elements.

Some ideas to have in mind when developing Web Virtual Reality apps are:

La nueva VR

Al principio los navegadores requerían plugins para ofrecer conenido inmersivo. Hoy, grandes compañías tecnológicas dan mayor importancia al VR. Google, Microsoft, Mozilla tienen intención de atraer apoyo a experiencias VR a través de sus navegadores. Facebook ha añadido la opción de 360º en foto y video, y los navegadores móviles son capaces de actuar como plataformas para web inmersivas. Oculus también ha anunciado un primer navegador de VR llamado Carmel.

The WebVR API

The WebVR API is a browser specification that is being considered as the standard on how to define how they Virtual Reality devices will interact with web and apps. It provides an implementation to communicate with the VR helmets, or in the case of smartphones to read information about the device status and pass it to 3D apps. This way, it can be used to render real time scenes in a stereoscopic way to the user.

VR Display

Interface that extracts the differences between computers, mobile devices and peripherals and represent them as an entity for the designer. The display gives back information of the different elements, and detects the status of the app to determine how to render a scene. With mobile VR experiences, the settings generated by the phone properties, and the rotational tracking its done by gyroscopic elements.

Native Apps

As the support for VR grows, native apps in different platforms have welcomed the unique API shapes. Altspace VR is a computer app, GearVR developed a new browser inside the app with a WebGL editor to make the 3D objects appear as holographic content. And Samsung Gear VR browser allows to inject additional metadata to the existing webapps, in order to settle environmental values and create a hybrid experience.

Graphic libraries

Every 3D experience rendered in a browser makes great use of Web GL, a subset of the OpenGL framework serves as the core to render graphics and computer devices. Writing graphic apps only in WebGL is a really extensive task, but several Javascript libraries have been developed over the WebGL layer so they ease the design process of 3D environments. WebGL has emerged as the standard of this type of experiences.

Unity Game Engine

Is one of the biggest tools to create virtual and augmented reality content. Offers to the developers the ability to export 3D apps to a different number of platforms. With its functionality of exporting in HTML, the games can be exported as web apps. The flexibility that provides this engine around physics, graphics, assets management, multiple script languages and big scenes makes it a popular option.