A Brief Overview of Virtual Environments
Virtual environments have been increasingly used for a variety of contexts: teaching in classrooms, scientific research, distance learning, psychiatric treatment, business, and e-commerce to name only a few. This overview will highlight some basic definitions, distinctions, and applications of this rapidly changing field.
Dictionary.com defines a virtual environment as "a computer-generated, three-dimensional representation of a setting in which the user of the technology perceives themselves to be and within which interaction takes place; also called virtual landscape, virtual space, virtual world."
Where as Wikipedia describes it as a “computer-based simulated environment intended for its users to inhabit and interact via avatars. This habitation usually is represented in the form of two or three-dimensional graphical representations of humanoids (or other graphical or text-based avatars).”
Needless to say there are some differences in these definitions. This is understandable considering that many differnt types of virtual environments.
