LAVAL, France- Virtual reality has been a major area of research for many companies over the past three decades. The ability to have an image or object to appear that is not actually there is a technology that can impact the world in many ways. However, this technology has not evolved quickly and has not become practical to the average person. However, at this year’s International Conference on Virtual Reality, in Laval, France, ideas on how to expand and use virtual reality have been and are being shared throughout the world of inventors and scientists who try to make this dream of a having a useful and practical virtual reality is one step closer to actually becoming a reality.

The conference is split into multiple symposiums that display the past year’s work in the field of virtual reality. One of the symposiums was the one on Virtual and Augmented Reality on Product Design, or a symposium on products that use virtual reality. This symposium dealt with ideas, prototypes, and new technologies involving virtual reality and consumer products. Probably the most interesting product at this symposium was the “Holocubitle” created by the French company Immersion. The “Holocubitle” is a breakthrough in virtual reality technology in which a user can manipulate a six sided cube to create up to six images that the user can distort in any way that they choose. In the future, this same technology can be used to create virtual reality images of buildings or building projects for architects, so that they can make a 3-D blueprint of the project that they are intent on building.

Another symposium at this conference was Virtual Reality for Medicine and Surgery. This symposium dealt with the synergy between the fields of virtual reality and medicine that would be more able to help the world. One major product at this symposium was the Virtual Reality Surgery Simulator. This technology allows a student surgeon to learn how to perform difficult and delicate surgeries on a virtual human, or it can be a way for a surgical doctor to practice the procedure they are going to perform on a virtual human before they do it on the real human. Another idea in this symposium was combining the fields of medicine and virtual reality. Many products at this symposium were to be used as simulators for diseases or to show disease “maps”, which are what a virus or bacteria look like in 3D. These products would revolutionize the field of medicine by allowing for the suppression of disease to be an easier and more efficient feat because we would know how the disease attacks the body and we would be able to suppress it within the body and it would allow for the making of vaccines to be quicker because the technology that can display a pathogen in 3D would allow doctors and scientists to create vaccines at a faster rate before a disease turned into an epidemic.

These products may not make it into the market soon. The field of virtual reality is one that has amazed many people in the past. However, it is a technology and a field that is very slow moving and slow to advancement. That may mean that these technologies that could be used for surgeries or medicines may not hit the market at a reasonable price for up to five years. Even though this conference may display the future of virtual reality, a future that is contains virtual reality is a long way off.