"Virtual Reality," or VR (also known as "artificial reality" (AR) or "cyberspace"), is the creation of an interactive computer-generated spatial environment. This simulated environment can represent what one might encounter in everyday experience, represent pure fantasy, or be a combination of both.

Early "first-generation" computer interfaces handled only simple onedimensional (1D) streams of text. The second generation, developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s for two-dimensional (2D) environments, started to use a computer screen's windows, icons, menus, and pointers (WIMP), including sliders, clicking to select, dragging to move, and so on. The third generation of interfaces is characterized by three-dimensional (3D) models and expressiveness.