VR.
1. Vibration reduction. Nikon’s equivalent to the Canon IS system.
cf. image stabilization.
2. Virtual reality. This can mean many things, but generally means some sort of computer-based simulation of reality. It can be entirely synthetic, such as the notion of cyberspace from 1980s science fiction stories.
Or, more commonly, it can involve shooting a series of photographs in sequence from a single point in space and assembling (“stitching”) the photos together inside a computer. When shooting a VR scene it’s important to minimize parallax error by keeping the camera on a stationary tripod and rotating the camera around the rear nodal point of the lens.
The computer then calculates a virtual object - typically a cylinder, sphere or cube - and applies the photographs to the inside surface of this object as if they were wallpaper. The user can then view the resulting photograph from the interior of the virtual object and pan around to see the whole scene. Apple’s QuickTime VR is a popular photographic VR system.
cf. parallax, QuickTime, rear nodal point, stitching, tripod.
Entry last updated 2002-04-27. Term 1290 of 1487.
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