Virtual reality as a tool has become increasingly available to a larger spectrum of people, including those in the production and healthcare side of the global economy, but those are by no means the only places VR is finding a home. Education has found increasingly better uses for virtual reality development, and virtual reality training has created better training outcomes in various industries.
Virtual reality isn’t a gimmick. It’s not just for gaming. It’s a tool that can be used to better the world around us. In recent years, it has proven necessary to the development of buildings, products, and healthcare systems. Very specifically, virtual reality training is a major factor in increasingly better safety outcomes in certain industries like manufacturing, construction, and healthcare. VR is steadily creating progress through its innovative use.
Top Reasons Why Virtual Reality Creates Progress Through Innovation
1. It’s not just gaming device, but a medium for expression and development. While virtual reality was rocketed to mainstream recognition within the confines of the gaming industry, it is by no means only a gaming device. Instead, developers use virtual reality to express complicated concepts that prove inefficient in other mediums. Immersing oneself in a scenario that has been tailored to a specific emotion or concept helps, not only the user, but the creator as well. The better suited the device is to a specific use case, the better outcomes there are, which means that the effort that goes into creating any given scenario drives its development even further.
2. It’s connecting the world in ways like never before. Via social media, entertainment, training, work environments, there is no end to the ways the virtual reality connects us. Virtual reality is often criticized for enabling isolating experiences, which can be true if used without certain precautions. On the other hand, if used with the intention to connect groups of like-minded people, virtual reality can create instances in which connection is the main goal of the interaction. It eliminates barriers like language, culture, and disability, and allows people to connect on intellectual levels and find commonalities instead of differences.
3. Virtual reality creates business opportunities for growth and development. In a mutually beneficial nature, virtual reality drives business growth, and that business growth drives further virtual reality development. The VR industry itself is worth billions, and has investors from multiple large corporations, the lease of which are in the gaming industry. Virtual reality has grown past its initial uses, and expanded into various other niches naturally and efficiently. It does help connect users in general, but it also helps connect customers with corporations, corporations with each other, and individuals within organizations to develop better outcomes for VR and their individual industry.
4. VR is taking strides to eliminate modern problems. Virtual reality is uniquely suited to help with therapy cases that require more effort than talking through them. It’s immersive nature, and the user’s ability to remain completely safe withing the physical world allow them to expose themselves to trigger scenarios. Doing this in a controlled environment helps them to remain calm and collected with the trigger scenario happens in an uncontrolled environment, such as a social setting.
5. Virtual reality is creating the next generation of innovative developers, engineers, and explorers. In the educational sphere, virtual reality gives teachers the ability to present their students with knowledge and experience more efficiently. In the interest of exponential growth- the more you know, the more you know- virtual reality ensures that younger generations know even more than we did growing up. Finding our way through the stars and into deep sea trenches to further exploration is easier when we start with a wider knowledge base, and virtual reality is creating a knowledge base so wide, the earth could fit through it.
6. Virtual reality will help raise the global standard of business excellence. While virtual reality had humble beginnings, with many advocators for the technology, touting its impressive feats of experiential learning, and immersive training, it has grown into something greater than what those initial innovators though it could be. In order for the technology to provide maximum benefits, however, developers require constant feedback with critical information. They gain this by the inevitable use that comes with industry leading investing. That investment doesn’t always come from direct contributions to development, but instead informational acquisition through its multiple use cases. Virtual reality isn’t just a toy, it’s a tool that provides better business and industry outcomes. When provided with this feedback, virtual reality developers can create even better use cases with which to help benefit and raise the global standard of excellence.
Top Industries Acquiring Virtual Reality and How They Use Them
There are three main industries that have acquired virtual reality- mainly manufacturing, construction, and healthcare- and there are a myriad of ways its being implemented into innovative companies. Let’s talk about a few of them.
Manufacturing has taken virtual reality and developed very practical uses for the technology. Not only do they use it to train their employees, but using virtual reality helps train better employees. When an employee goes through virtual reality training, they’re getting hands on practical application use cases in a low-risk environment. This allows them to have more intensive and direct training before ever going out onto a production floor, making them a more reliable worker than those without VRT.
Construction uses virtual reality to, not only train construction workers, but also develop more accurate 3D models with blueprints to match. In addition, they can use this precursor model to find any issues with the plan before ever stepping foot on site. This allows them to lessen the overall cost of production (eliminating any unnecessary materials and time) while maintaining integrity through the building process. As a cross over from VR, augmented reality headsets have helped with accuracy on the work site in terms of measurements and overall construction plans. Virtual reality headsets help key investors see how the site is progressing, and lets them walk the grounds and get a feel for the completed site before its done.
Healthcare workers have had significant increases in workplace safety with virtual reality training. In line with creating high risk scenarios on low risk environments, the adoption of virtual reality in healthcare training has helped improve safety outcomes and reduce the overall cost of employee liability. This has helped redirect some of those PPE funds into areas where hospitals stand in need of, such as better patient care, construction of more healthcare sites, and high tech equipment that improves patient outcomes.
Virtual reality has come a long way since the beginning of its development. Thank heaven we never had to use the Sword of Damocles, and an even bigger thank you to those who did use it, and developed it into a more accessible bit of hardware. With their innovation, we now have the ability to access the benefits of virtual reality for a few hundred dollars. They paved the way for future developments, and with their help, future generations of students, healthcare workers, manufacturers, and educators can help create better outcomes for the world at large.