Virtual Reality Using Programming Language C++

Recently, virtual reality (VR) technology can be used to fields such as medicine, engineering, education, design, training, and entertainment. VR is a computer interfaces to simulate almost identical to the real world beyond the monitor to give 3D visual experience. The issue with this system is to create a consistent user experience across devices. By using cross-platform programming language like C++ that is a highly portable language and provides a selection of multi-device, multi-platform app development; So, it seems it can be done. However, there is a lot more to cover before we can rely on such alternative due to incompatibility characters between hardware systems and software support.

Virtual reality allows people perceives most of the senses, including sight, hearing, and touch, just like we normally do in reality. The combination of a sense of immersion and interactivity is called telepresence. Jonathan Steuer mentioned two main components of immersion: depth of information and breadth of information. Depth of information refers to the amount and quality of data in the signals a user receives when interacting in a virtual environment. Steuer defines breadth of information as the “number of sensory dimensions simultaneously presented.” A virtual environment experience has a wide breadth of information if it stimulates all your senses. Most virtual environment experiences prioritize visual and audio components over other sensory-stimulating factors, but a growing number of scientists and engineers are looking into ways to incorporate a users’ sense of touch. Systems that give a user force feedback and touch interaction are called haptic systems. Dr. Frederick Brooks, a pioneer in VR technology and theory, says that displays must project a frame rate of at least 20 - 30 frames per second to create a convincing user experience. Lag time between when a user acts and when the virtual environment reflects that action is called latency. Latency usually refers to the delay between the time a user turns his head or moves his eyes and the change in the point of view, though the term can also be used for a lag in other sensory outputs. Studies with flight simulators show that humans can detect a latency of more than 50 milliseconds. Swimming in VR systems doesn’t refer to jumping into a pool -- it describes the effect of latency within a virtual environment. If you were to look around in a VE and notice that the change in point of view was not instantaneous, you would experience swimming. The effect is distracting and can even make you experience motion sickness, called simsickness or cybersickness in VR circles. Input devices are also important in VR systems. Currently, input devices range from controllers with two or three buttons to electronic gloves and voice recognition software. There is no standard control system across the discipline. VR scientists and engineers are continuously exploring ways to make user input as natural as possible to increase the sense of telepresence. Scientists are also exploring the possibility of developing biosensors for VR use. A biosensor can detect and interpret nerve and muscle activity. The big challenges in the field of virtual reality are developing better tracking systems, finding more natural ways to allow users to interact within a virtual environment and decreasing the time it takes to build virtual spaces. it can take a long time to create a convincing virtual environment - the more realistic the environment, the longer it takes to make it. It could take a team of programmers more than a year to duplicate a real room accurately in virtual space.

Another challenge for VE system developers is creating a system that avoids bad ergonomics. Many systems rely on hardware that encumbers a user or limits his options through physical tethers. Without well-designed hardware, a user could have trouble with his sense of balance or inertia with a decrease in the sense of telepresence, or he could experience cybersickness, with symptoms that can include disorientation and nausea.

Computers are some of the most versatile tools that we have available. They can perform stunning feats of computation, they allow information to be exchanged easily regardless of their physical location, they simplify many every-day tasks, and they allow us to automate many processes that would be tedious or boring to perform otherwise. However, computers are not 'intelligent' as we are. They have to be told in no uncertain terms exactly what they're supposed to do, and their native languages are quite unlike anything we speak. Thus, there's a formidable language barrier between a person who wishes a computer to do something, and the computer that typically requires instructions in its native language, machine code, to do anything. So far, computers cannot figure out what they are supposed to do on their own, and thus they rely on programs which we create, which are sets of instructions that the computer can understand and follow. C++ is a general-purpose object-oriented programming (OOP) language, developed by Bjarne Stroustrup, and is an extension of the C language. It is therefore possible to code C++ in a 'C style' or 'object-oriented style.' In certain scenarios, it can be coded in either way and is thus an effective example of a hybrid language. C++ compiles directly to a machine's native code, allowing it to be one of the fastest languages in the world, if optimized. As one of the most frequently used languages in the world and as an open language, C++ has a wide range of compilers that run on many different platforms that support it. Code that exclusively uses C++'s standard library will run on many platforms with few to no changes. The main highlight of C++ is a collection of predefined classes, which are data types that can be instantiated multiple times. The language also facilitates declaration of user-defined classes. Classes can further accommodate member functions to implement specific functionality. C++ includes several operators such as comparison, arithmetic, bit manipulation and logical operators. One of the most attractive features of C++ is that it enables the overloading of certain operators such as addition. A few of the essential concepts within the C++ programming language include polymorphism, virtual and friend functions, templates, namespaces and pointers. The main skills you’ll need to become an AR/VR developer are in the 3D area. In fact, it’s not very different from 3D games development. You may have to learn about 3D modeling and/or scanning, 3D games engines, 360° photos and videos, maybe a little bit of math and geometry, programming languages like C/C++/C# and software development kits (SDKs), and how to design experiences for users in 3D. The most popular game engines you’ll need to learn use them:

-Unity, which uses C# as its primary programming language.

-Unreal Engine, which uses C++ and a node-based language called Blueprints Visual Scripting.

Virtual Function in C++

A virtual function a member function which is declared within base class and is re-defined (Overridden) by derived class. When you refer to a derived class object using a pointer or a reference to the base class, you can call a virtual function for that object and execute the derived class’s version of the function.

-Virtual functions ensure that the correct function is called for an object, regardless of the type of reference (or pointer) used for function call.

-They are mainly used to achieve Runtime polymorphism

-Functions are declared with a virtual keyword in base class.

-The resolving of function call is done at Run-time.

Polymorphism in C++

The word polymorphism means having many forms. In simple words, we can define polymorphism as the ability of a message to be displayed in more than one form.

Real life example of polymorphism, a person at a same time can have different characteristic. Like a man at a same time is a father, a husband, a employee. So, a same person possesses different behavior in different situations. This is called polymorphism.

Polymorphism is considered as one of the important features of Object-Oriented Programming.

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