VR Mobile Acrophobia Treatment

Abstract

Virtual Reality applications have significantly developed over the past few years. The large computing power
nowadays has empowered building applications with high quality graphics that can emulate the real world. This
advancement has contributed to the psychiatric department in the process of anxiety treatment.
Experiencing fear in dangerous situations is natural. Usually people are afraid of predators, insects and different
hazardous environments. However, certain people have anxiety problems from situations, living creatures, places or things were it is natural to others. The term phobia refers to excessive irrational fear and anxiety in natural situations. Phobias have disrupted people's life in many ways. Acrophobia or "Fear of Heights" is were patients experience irrational fear of heights. Virtual Reality has had a great contribution to phobia treatment. As patients can be exposed to their fears in a gradual manner. In this paper, a VR environment was developed to help psychiatrists in Acrophobia diagnosed patients' treatment. This article focuses on VR environment development and its limitations on a mobile platform. Since mobile devices processing power is much less than VR sets which are usually used. The modeling and texturing limitations imposed by mobile hardware greatly restrict detail.