Preface

Information Technology is growing rapidly. With the birth of high-resolution graphics, high-speed computing and user interaction devices, Virtual Reality has emerged as a major new technology in the mid 90es, last century. An explosion has occurred in our understanding of Virtual Reality, Virtual Environments and in the technologies required to produce them in the last decade. Virtual Worlds and Virtual Environments are produced for people, for users to interact with computer and with complex information sets. It became a commonplace in our increasingly technological world in recent years. These Virtual Reality Applications cover almost all fields of the real life activities. Another standpoint is the ergonomic and psychological concerns that must be investigated, in this way the people will enjoy using Virtual Reality technologies.

Virtual Reality technology is currently used in a broad range of applications. The best known are games, movies, simulations, therapy. From a manufacturing standpoint, there are some attractive applications including training, education, collaborative work and learning.

This book provides an up-to-date discussion of the current research in Virtual Reality and its applications. It describes the current Virtual Reality state-of-the-art and points out the many areas where there is still work to be done. We have chosen certain areas to cover in this book, which we believe will have potential significant impact on Virtual Reality and its applications.

The main features of the book can be summarised as follows:


This book provides a definitive resource for wide variety of people including academicians, designers, developers, educators, engineers, practitioners, researchers, and graduate students.

#### XII Preface

We would like to thank the authors for their contributions. Without their expertise and effort, this book would never be born. InTech staff also deserves our sincere recognition for their support throughout the project.

Finally the editor would like to thank her husband Ferenc Sik, her sons András Sik and Gergely Sik for their patience and Professor Janos Schanda, the head of the editor's Laboratory for giving her the freedom of research.

> **Dr. Cecília Sík Lányi**  Associate professor at the University of Pannonia, Veszprem, Hungary
