Visualization Handbook

24

Visualization Using Virtual Reality

R. BOWEN LOFTIN,     Old Dominion University

JIM X. CHEN,     George Mason University

LARRY ROSENBLUM,     U.S. Naval Research Laboratory

24.1 Introduction

24.1.1 Purpose

This chapter provides a brief introduction to virtual reality, followed by a review of selected visualization applications implemented in a virtual-reality environment. The reader is provided with “pointers” to the major conferences and to more detailed compilations of research in virtual-reality-based visualization.

24.1.2 Virtual Reality

What we now often refer to as virtual reality was first proposed in the 1960s [16, 38, 39]. In addition to the term “virtual reality,” many other terms such as “virtual environments,” “synthetic ...