Thepotentialimpact ofVirtual Realityon theMining Industry

The Potential Impact
Of
Virtual Reality
On the
Mining Industry
Part 1
Virtual reality or VR is aimed at achieving total immersion. That means, a VR technology delivers sensory experience to the users so that the user feels the experience as real experience. But in reality, the experience is a virtual and artificial environment created by computerized systems. The users immerse into the virtual environment so much that they starts interacting with the components perceived from the virtual reality platform as real components. A virtual environment may be a complete new environment created based on the inputs collected from the real world environment or it may be a simulation of some real world environment. It may cross the boundaries between the physical and virtual reality worlds by allowing the users to feel like there is no physical laws like gravity etc. or the users may perceive that they are out of the world (Virtual Reality Society, 2017). Some of the key elements of a virtual reality experience are,
· A virtual world experience is created by using three dimensional graphics. However, it is not necessary to use 3D graphics always. There must be some medium like display, rendering etc. for realizing the environment. Through that medium the users can create objects or interact with the objects in the virtual world. The visual perspectives of the users are results of the responsiveness of the activities of the users including their voice, movement, gesture etc. (Virtual Reality Society, 2017).
· The virtual reality immersion offers a perception about the virtual or the simulated word. It includes the sense of presence in the human brain.
· Sensory feedbacks are also there through simulation. The sensory feedbacks cover the requirements of visual, haptic, aural, etc. simulation. There are integrated hardware based input systems and output systems.
· Interactions between the user and the system is another important requirement for such virtual reality experience.
There are three main types of virtual reality systems depending on the level of immersion. Those are, non-immersive systems, semi-immersive systems, and fully immersive systems.
Mining industry is well known for the dangers associated with the activities and business operations. Even the training process is also dangerous and always there are risks to the lives of the workers and people present there. It needs the staffs and disaster management department to be...