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First The first experiments with devices, that we could call virtual reality devices, begun began in the first half of the 20th century. American film-maker filmmaker and inventor Morton L. Heilig, in pursuing his goal of construction the constructing an ultimate Experience Theatre-experience theatre, constructed a multimedia device that he called [[Wikipedia:The Sensorama|The the Sensorama]].<ref>Heilig, Morton. "The Cinema of the future." Translated by Uri Feldman. In Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality. Edited by Randall Packer and Ken Jordan. Expanded ed. New York: WW Norton (2002): 239-251.</ref> It was a mechanical device capable of displaying a stereoscopic 3D image, playing stereo sound , and tilting the user sitting in front of it in dependence with depending on what what happening on the screen. It was also equipped with an aroma dispenser to convey smells of the environment being displayed. Unfortunately, Heilig did not manage to secure funding for his project and The Sensorama remained a prototype only.
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List of [[:Category:Virtual Reality Devices|Virtual Reality Devicesvirtual reality devices]]:
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Virtual Reality Devices reality (VR) devices are a type of Wearable wearable devices that are worn on the head and display information directly into the user's eyes through one or more electronic displays present in the device. Together with [[Smartglasses|smart glasses]] and smart contact lenses , they create the [[:Category:Head_Mounted_Displays|Head Mounted Displayshead mounted displays]] category. The virtual reality feeling is achieved by splitting the image, or using two displays, of the displayed information in such a way, that a stereoscopic view is created. This creates the feeling of depth in what the user sees and strengthens the immersion of the virtual reality. Additionally, other means of increasing the immersion are often present. These can include sensors to register the position and tilt of the device, which can then be then carried over to the virtual reality, headphones to play sound and /or music, or eye- and hands-tracking technologies.
Unlike [[Smartglasses|smart glasses]], Virtual Reality Devices virtual reality devices are fully enclosed and, with the exception of some hybrid devices combining both, they are not see-through and thus do not combine the actual and virtual realities together. The reality is not altered, but it is completely blocked out instead.
== Historical overview ==
[[File:Sword of damocles vr.png|200px|thumbnail|left|The Sword of Damocles device with its mechanical head tracking sensors in place.]]
While certainly a device capable of virtual reality, The Sensorama was purely mechanical in nature. The true virtual reality machine, one that displays a computer-generated environment, was called The Sword of Damocles.<ref name="sutherland68">SUTHERLAND, Ivan E. A head-mounted three dimensional display. In: Proceedings of the December 9-11, 1968, fall joint computer conference, part I. ACM, 1968. p. 757-764.</ref> The name was fitting, because the device was quite bulky and had to be attached to a mechanical arm on the ceiling. It was constructed by a computer scientist and computer graphics pioneer [[Wikipedia:Ivan Sutherland|Ivan E. Sutherland]] and his student Bob Sproull in 1968. At that time, they both worked at the [[Wikipedia:Massachusetts Institute of Technology|Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] and the experiments with their [[:Category:Head Mounted Displays|Head Mounted Display]] are believed to be the first of the kind. The displayed graphics comprised of simple wire-frame rooms and offered mechanical head tracking.
