Glossary

3D Blu-ray playback

ability to watch the content of 3D Blu-ray disks in 3D very much like in 3D IMAX


360-degree videos and photos

when you watch a 360-degree movie, you can see the panorama all around you. 360 degree photos are a static version of the same experience.


display resolution

every display consists of pixels – tiny “bulps” packed densely next to each other. The bigger the resolution, the greater number of those “bulps” and the better quality of the visuals.


droning

driving or piloting remote controlled vehicles


Eye Relief

roughly speaking a distance between the eyes and lenses of the headset


first-person-view game

a game in which you see the world through the eyes of the character you control


fixed foveated rendering (FFR)

the image just in front of your eyes has better quality than at the peripheries. The effect is created by software and has nothing to do lenses and resolution of the display.


FPV glasses (First-Person-View glasses)

a head-mounted screen displaying a video signal transmitted from a camera installed on- board the remote controlled vehicle


God rays

God rays in the context of VR is an artificial glow around bright objects, especially when they happen to be on a dark background.


haptic feedback

a mechanism responsible for faking the sense of touch by applying vibrations or forces to the user


HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface)

one of the standards of transmitting audio-visual data between the source and a display


HMD

head-mounted display. For example PSVR, Oculus Rift or HTC Vive headset.


Inside-out tracking

sensors responsible for tracking are inside the headset


IPD (Interpupillary Distance)

distance between centers of the pupils of the eyes


IR

infrared radiation


Large Virtual Screen

It is a large screen in the virtual world. The screen is flat or curved and can be placed in various types of scenery. It is useful for watching movies and playing regular games on a large screen.


motherboard

an electronic circuit board which is one of the main components of a personal computer


orientation tracking

VR system knows which direction the object being tracked (e.g. the headset) is facing and how much it is tilted


Outside-in tracking

sensors tracking the headset and controllers are additional pieces of hardware placed around the play area


PC

personal computer


play area

area within which tracking of the headset and controllers works optimally


positional tracking

VR system knows where in space the object being tracked (e.g. the headset) is.

If this feature is absent, you are placed in some arbitrary location within the VR world
and the system tracks mainly a direction you are looking along.


room-scale VR

VR mode able to track the player in any pose, anywhere in a big, designated area


screen-door effect

every display consists of pixels – tiny, densely packed “bulps”. If their density is not big enough, you can see every pixel individually.


standalone VR systems

they don’t require neither a console nor a PC. All the processing happens inside the headset.


stereoscopy

a technique thanks to which it is possible to see images in 3D. Its principles are described here.


sweet spot

The image you see on a display of a VR headset is sharp only when your eyes stay within a sweet spot area around the center of the lenses.  If the sweet spot is large, even when the headset wobbles a bit, it doesn’t ruin clarity of the image.

In addition to that, if distance between lenses is fixed (no manual adjustments to IPD) and a distance between your eyes is either bigger or smaller than that, large sweet spot helps a lot in countering the effects of this discrepancy.


trackers

all objects from the real world, which can be tracked by the VR system to propel their counterparts in the VR. Those include representations of: pistols, shotguns, bats, rackets etc.


USB (Universal Serial Bus)

one of the ways of the communication between computers, gaming consoles and other devices. The signal is transmitted over the cable and through the standardized plugs and sockets. USB can be also used for charging batteries or as a source of power.