Technological Considerations in the Design of Multisensory Virtual Environments: How Real Does It Need to Be?

What makes a virtual environment (VE) feel real? How real does the VE need to be? These are questions that designers of VEs must ask either explicitly or implicitly. The answers to these questions will depend to a very large degree on the intended use of the environment (e.g., basic research, test and evaluation, training, entertainment). Moreover, each real environment and each intended use will likely suggest different sensory, aesthetic, emotional, and cognitive requirements for the corresponding VE. The designer’s ability to meet these requirements will be limited by the available technology and its cost and also by the simple fact that the users know they are participating in a simulation. This chapter broadly considers technological and practical limits on multisensory VEs and the implications of these limits. The current discussion is framed in terms of the requirements for simulating the environment that an Air Force Pararescueman, or Pararescue Jumper (PJ), might encounter while performing a combat search and rescue (CSAR) mission.