VR as the next era's canvas-

Idea is an archetype of which a corresponding being in phenomenal reality is an imperfect replica. ~Plato

Human being has been actively looking for channel to express their idea efficiently.

In the renaissance era, artist and musicion express their idea through painting and ochestra respectively. In modern age, we have movie that combine both the motion picture and sound and this is called "multimedia" nowsaday. Last, with the born of information technology we gave birth to "interactive media".

Electronic game is the leading implementation in this field. It has been so widely spread that you can see electronic game as the new way for idea expressing. It use the combination of interactivity together with 2/3D image and music to immerse its audience (player) into the virtual world that setup by its creator.

However, all of the media channel above only play arround with the hearing and viewing senses. In secondary science class, we have learnt that human beings have 5 senses: view, hear, smell, taste and heptic that includes pain, touch, hot, cold and pressure. From here, we could easily predict that the ultimate canvas for an artist should consits of all of these senses!

The current technology that actively pushing us to this goal is the Virtual Reality. Some of you might say: Hey, I never been to Genting or Disney land before and from where I get intouch with VR technology? VR has affected alot of field in computer science and one of the deepest influences is the gaming technology.

Undeniable, all the 3D graphics technology came from VR research. Thus, one can says that game is a subset of VR. In fact, I believe most of the VR researcher is now working in game industry.

When we talk about VR, we will think how far it can go. Now, what is ultimate Virtual Reality?
I always like to use Hollywood movie: The Matrix as the example. The world where Matrix created could be called the ultimate virtual reality world. Once you plug in, you never know it is real or virtual. All your sensors can be prefectly simulated and that is how we immerse(trap) someone inside a virtual world. Anyway, this will be a very far things as we not even able to generate prefect viewing.

In current stage, most of the VR research is focusing on 3D graphic and interaction technic. A little bit on heptic feedback where user can sense limited feedback on touch sensors, such as temperature and surface texturing. Heard that research on smell generation is carrying out by perfume company.

Thus, we can be sure that art is no more an exclusive terms for graphic worker or musician. Programmer that using programming to code their virtual world out is an artist as well. They are even the greatest artist as art work that they created is far more immerse than plain graphic or sound.