page_title: Virtual reality roller coaster
section_title: Background and history
hierarchical_section_title: Virtual reality roller coaster / Background and history
caption_attribution_description: English: A train of Superman - The Ride Virtual Reality Coaster at the Six Flags New England theme park. Riders are wearing Gear VR virtual reality headsets. Deutsch: Ein Zug von Superman - The Ride Virtual Reality Coaster in Six Flags New England. Die Fahrgäste tragen Gear VR Brillen und erleben die reale Fahrt kombiniert mit Virtueller Realität.
context_page_description: A virtual reality roller coaster is a special kind of amusement park ride attraction, consisting of a roller coaster facility or ride that can be experienced with virtual reality headsets. The first publicly operated virtual reality roller coasters have been opened in late 2015. Since then, several theme parks all over the world have been adapting this technology to extend their existing coaster facilities.
context_section_description: While virtual reality roller coaster simulations quickly became quite popular after the appearance of the Oculus Rift, it showed that dizziness and motion sickness, known as virtual reality sickness, would be a major problem. This was caused by the offset between the simulated motion in virtual reality and the lack of real motion, as the inner sense of balance wouldn't feel the appropriate forces and turns. In order to test if this could be overcome by synchronizing virtual reality movement to real motion, a research group of the University of Applied Sciences, Kaiserslautern, led by Thomas Wagner, together with roller coaster manufacturer Mack Rides and Europa-Park, has been conducting experiments on actual roller coaster facilities since early 2014. It showed that, with a precise synchronization, not only the nausea would disappear, but also a new kind of attraction was created as, for the first time, this setup allowed for a simulation ride to feature continuous G forces, zero gravity and drops (or so-called air time).
  Still, the technical setup of the 2014 experiments was not feasible yet for a permanent installation. Most of all, mounting a computer on a coaster train would not have worked due to the continuous heavy vibrations; also the usual cable connection of a classical virtual reality headset like the Oculus Rift would have meant a serious safety hazard. Wagner and his team could eventually overcome these problems by deploying so called mobile virtual reality headsets like the Samsung Gear VR, where the entire image generation happens directly inside of the actual headset. The very first virtual reality roller coaster installations have been opened to the public in late 2015, starting at Europa-Park, Germany, followed by Canada's Wonderland and Universal Studios Japan, all of them developed by the startup company VR Coaster, which originated from Wagners Research Group.
  In 2014, another startup called Astral Vision presented a wearable technology prototype for theme park rides that uses mobile phone sensors and does not require additional sensors.
  As of June 2016, 17 theme parks worldwide were operating virtual reality roller coasters.
caption: A train of the Superman – The Ride virtual reality roller coaster at the Six Flags New England theme park. Riders are wearing Gear VR virtual reality headsets.
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