What is virtual, augmented and mixed reality?

Explore virtual worlds as if you were really there. See around you digital interfaces with information in real time that accompany you while you move. Operate on a patient while you see inside her through special glasses. These three experiences define what virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality are respectively. Three examples of a future that has been years in the making and is now mature enough to experience first-hand.

These three technologies, which will make the metaverse an immersive and realistic simulation like we have never been able to see before, have been developing for years thanks to the work of companies, researchers and technologies that already allow us to walk through digital environments, play in hyper-realistic simulations or perform tasks that combine the real and virtual world.

So to find out how virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality differ, we are going to review one by one what they consist of and what they provide us. Both in the recreational aspect and in the professional. Since beyond video games and metaverses for entertainment, these technologies are very useful in fields such as remote control, accident prevention, scientific research or space exploration.

Virtual Reality: Inside the Metaverse

Virtual reality (for its acronym VR) is, of these three technologies, the one we are most familiar with. It has existed for decades, but the result was somewhat crude, since the technology of the moment did not allow hyper-realistic graphics like the current ones. In addition, the helmets and other physical elements that made it possible to move were heavy and did not offer much freedom of movement. But today this has changed.

To understand ourselves, virtual reality makes it possible for us to be in digital worlds recreated with 3D images. Images and sounds that do not exist in the real world but that we experience in first person with a very high level of realism and immersion. Science fiction has dealt a lot with this subject and the difficulty in discerning reality from fiction. At the moment, we don’t have this problem.

What we have achieved is to obtain avatars and control them remotely. Traveling through virtual worlds like the metaverse, interacting with other people, and doing whatever the programming of that metaverse allows. Without the rules that limit our experiences in the real world.

Currently there is a whole range of virtual reality glasses and helmets from different brands. All have a catalog of video games and immersive experiences. In addition, different companies are working on metaverses, some already available, which can be explored with or without virtual reality glasses.

Augmented reality: the virtual in the real world

If virtual reality allows us to move through the virtual world, augmented reality (for its acronym AR) integrates virtual elements into the real world that surrounds us. In other words, augmented reality enriches our experience in the world in which we live. And just like virtual reality, we’ve been enjoying it for a long time.

On television, on-screen banners could be considered a forerunner of augmented reality. Especially the virtual elements that we see during a sports broadcast and that help us to better understand what is happening, the performance of the players, their positions on the field, etc.

But where augmented reality is yielding the most is in mobile phones. Thanks to current smartphones, more powerful than the computers of a few decades ago, we can walk down the street hunting Pokémon, translate posters and signs written in languages we don’t know, or find an address thanks to graphic indications through the screen of our smartphone.

Augmented reality allows objects, avatars, signs or interactive interfaces to be included in the real world. Thus, you can carry out cultural activities, play in the open field with your phone or travel the world without getting lost. among many examples. And with the advantage of not needing additional glasses or devices. Still, there have been some approaches in the form of augmented reality glasses, but a model to rival our pocket-sized smartphones has yet to be achieved.

Mixed reality: the best of both worlds

Mixed reality may be the least known of the three technologies we are talking about. And it is that it has elements of virtual reality and augmented reality, so it is difficult to differentiate them from each other. It’s more. Some call mixed reality (by its acronym RM) improved augmented reality. The reason is that it merges the real world with the virtual world.

The result is that we can interact with physical elements in a virtual way or interact with virtual objects that we see in the real world. A fusion that will enrich the way we live our day to day and that we have been able to see in movies and futuristic science fiction series. There are many examples: watching a sporting event or a movie on any piece of furniture or wall in our house, obtaining information about a product that we want to buy simply by touching it or fixing an appliance in our house thanks to the virtual indications that we see in front of us.