ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on pragmatically engaging a user’s senses beyond the default modes of sight and sound to strive for much higher physical and mental immersive qualities through multimodal feedback. Presenting environmental feedback for immersive experiences has always been an uphill struggle, typically relegated to pioneering virtual reality (VR) practitioners. VR systems using environmental effects are sparse throughout the world and usually found in expensive theme park installations or some university research labs. The communications from the VR system are formed by code classes implemented to be consistent with what the driver code in control device expects. The chapter shows how to setup one particular environmental feedback device (EFD) control solution—one geared specifically for virtual reality experiences. The software layer includes a “Spatial Manager” tool for coordinating a network configuration and an EFD configuration. Within the EFD configuration each EFD is cataloged by which channel it is plugged into, the type of EFD, location, rotation, and scale of each device.
