Abstract:

The great development of the multimedia technologies in this decade scams to impose a real revolution on our environment and on the relationships among manufacturers, retailers, and consumers. New frontiers arc opening in front of us due to the tied links in the world of telecommunications, electronics and computer technologies. A few years ago. Virtual Reality was confined to laboratories, amusement arcades and science fiction novels and was rarely taken seriously in the business world, Today, however, it is entering the mainstream of corporate computing and is being used for everything from complex engineering design work to medical training, retailing and data visualisation. In 1994 in Europe of the 800 virtual reality projects in existence, more than 600 were in areas not associated with entertainment. These applications have been developed using the technology evolution that has allowed the system manufacturers to reduce the costs, which have been the real barrier for a massive implementation.