Analysis of virtualization as a solution to VR-system mutualization

Immersive Virtual Reality (VR) systems offer vast opportunities in terms of scientific research as well as in terms of industrial applications. Typical industrial applications include 3D design, ergonomics and training. Although such VR systems have proven to be of great interest for companies and research institutes, their construction and maintenance costs remain an issue. It is therefore essential to find means to easily and safely mutualize VR equipments among multiple users in order to reduce such costs, as well as to democratize their use. In this paper, we analyze the interest of virtualization techniques to easily and safely maintain and share complex VR systems between multiple users with heterogeneous needs in software, drivers, operating systems and peripherals. Virtualization consists in hosting one or multiple other operating systems (the guests) on an already installed operating system (the host) by abstracting all the components and peripherals. Despite the general idea that virtualization techniques strongly impact performance, we show that these technologies remain very efficient and furthermore provide a clear picture on their benefits in supporting and maintaining different configurations for different users in complex VR system.