It has taken teams of highly-skilled software and advanced vision programmers and high-level clinical advisors, as well as a few thousand hours to bring IREX to life. The revolutionary IREX system provides clinicians with a new, advanced method of managing the therapeutic exercise process. IREX will bring a level of control, feedback and patient interaction never before available to clinicians. Here's a little about how IREX makes it happen:
Sophisticated camera technology captures the patient's image on a computer monitor, which allows the patient to see they move and interact with objects in a virtual environment. IREX uses no wires or other peripheral devices, allowing users total freedom of movement
Patients stand in front of a "green screen" that is digitally removed, leaving only the patients actual body images placed within the video environment; No headgear or wires, only a light weight glove on one hand and no system calibration is required.
IREX then guides the patient through a clinician-prescribed, on-screen exercise routine. Exercise programs consist of sports games such as soccer, volleyball, snowboarding, and other adventure oriented exercises. These clinician-prescribed exercise programs incorporate many facets of human movement, including balance, hand-eye coordination, flexion, abduction, rotation and other functional movements.
Due to the visually stimulating environment and interactive mode, IREX captures the patient's concentration and enthusiasm for the prescribed exercise program. This can create a welcome distraction from the standard pain and repetitiveness of conventional exercise for the patient.The technology behind the IREX system can identify and capture the patient's body movement, which is unlike any equipment currently available to clinicians
IREX tracks the movement of the patient's body and extremities within the clinician-prescribed range-of-motion criteria. This data is recorded as an output report, which allows the clinician to see if the patient is performing in line with the prescribed exercise targets. The technology behind IREX has been in use for years, with installations in numerous medical rehabilitation and research settings around the world. Our customers have provided enthusiastic endorsements for the system, and have indicated a high level of participant acceptance and compliance. IREX features fully-automated and programmable patient set-up and instruction screens.
Virtual reality:
Virtual reality (VR) is a technology which allows a user to interact with a computer-simulated environment. Most virtual reality environments are primarily visual experiences, displayed either on a computer screen or through special stereoscopic displays, but some simulations include additional sensory information, such as sound through speakers or headphones. Some advanced and experimental systems have included limited tactile information, known as force feedback.
Users can interact with a virtual environment either through the use of standard input devices such as a keyboard and mouse, or through multimodal devices such as a wired glove, the Polhemus boom arm, and/or Omni directional treadmill.
The simulated environment can be similar to the real world, for example, simulations for pilot or combat training, or it can differ significantly from reality, as in VR games.
In practice, it is currently very difficult to create a high-fidelity virtual reality experience, due largely to technical limitations on processing power, image resolution and communication bandwidth. However, those limitations are expected to eventually be overcome as processor, imaging and data communication technologies become more powerful and cost-effective over time.
Terminology:
While virtual reality originally denoted a fully immersive tethered system, the term has since been used to describe systems lacking wired gloves, full body touch suits, etc., such as those driven by VRML and X3D on the World Wide Web and occasionally even text-based interactive systems such as MOOs or MUDs. Non-immersive virtual reality uses a normal monitor, and the person manipulates the virtual environment using a keyboard, a mouse, a joystick or a similar input device. The term was used in the early 1990s to denote 3D computer and video games, particularly first-person shooters.
VR timeline:
Predating digital computing, the Sensorama was a mechanical device, which reportedly still functions today. In 1968, Ivan Sutherland, with the help of his student Bob Sproull, created what is widely considered to be the first Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality (AR) Head Mounted Display (HMD) system. It was primitive both in terms of user interface and realism, and the HMD to be worn by the user was so heavy it had to be suspended from the ceiling, and the graphics comprising the virtual environment were simple wireframe rooms. The formidable appearance of the device inspired its name, The Sword of Damocles.
Also notable among the earlier hypermedia and virtual reality systems was the Aspen Movie Map, which was created at MIT in 1977. The program was a crude virtual simulation of Aspen, Colorado in which users could wander the streets in one of three modes: summer, winter, and polygons. The first two were based on photographs the researchers actually photographed every possible movement through the city's street grid in both seasons and the third was a basic 3-D model of the city.
Future:
It is unclear exactly where the future of virtual reality is headed. In the short run, the graphics displayed in the HMD will soon reach a point of near realism. The aural aspect will move into a new realm of three dimensional sound. This refers to the addition of sound channels both above and below the individual. The virtual reality application of this future technology will most likely be in the form of over ear headphones. With our technological limits today, sight and sound are the only two senses that will be able to be replicated almost flawlessly. In order to engage the other senses of touch, smell, and taste, the brain must be manipulated directly. This would move virtual reality into the realm of a vivid dream not dissimilar to "The Matrix".
