Virtual reality in anaesthesia.

pioneering company in virtual reality development. Other terminology used to describe this technology includes artificial reality, virtual environments, cyberspace, visually coupled systems, telepresence and virtual presence. The multiplicity of different terms to describe this concept suggests that a single concise definition is difficult to obtain. Definitions which have been proposed include: virtual reality is an advanced human–computer interface that simulates a realistic environment and allows participants to interact with it [13]; virtual environments are three-dimensional, computer-generated worlds which accurately model and simulate an actual environment, whether it be a physical structure or an aggregation of different types of data [7]; and cyberspace—a graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system [10]. In essence, virtual reality is simply a more imaginative way of providing a human–computer interface than the standard keyboard, mouse and screen system with which we are familiar (fig. 1). Virtual reality systems have been developed using high definition monitor screens with specialized tools for manipulating screen images, and the more popularly familiar fully immersive helmet-based systems seen in some games arcades. In virtual reality the user becomes part of an interactive world of data objects created by a computer. These objects may be used to recreate images of the real world or to construct a new and totally imaginary world. Objects may represent physical structures or such