The purpose of the VRSJ’s founding, on March 15, 1996:

Virtual reality is a fast-growing technology with utilities in an extremely wide range of fields, ranging from simulation, entertainment, and art, through medical treatment, design, planning, and evaluation. It is also present in software development, communications, human interface design, and robot control, and can be expected to evolved into a generic technology supporting our everyday lives during the 21st century. In addition to its fundamental underpinnings, including computer science (in particular computer graphics), measurement, control, communications engineering for robots and machines, and data systems, the VR field now embraces the humanities and social sciences – including the arts and cognitive psychology – as well as bioengineering, physiology, and medicine. In view of the above, VR is developing into a new academic discipline, in the form of an integrated science that fuses art and scientific technology (science and art).

Research and development into VR in Japan has been ongoing for more than 10 years now, and has reached the stage whereby an initial era is taking shape. Last year, Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports Science and Technology nominated VR as a theme of its “Scientific Research in Priority Areas” scheme for grants-in-aid. Furthermore, with the Ministry of International Trade and Industry’s national project on “Human Media” and “R-Cubed” pioneering research project set to start in April this year, VR is gaining recognition as a legitimate academic discipline and is developing further as a field of industry. Therefore, it is hoped that an “academic society” combining academic and research institutions with the industrial sector can be formed. Accordingly, we propose the present establishment of the Virtual Reality Society of Japan (tentative name), as an academic society consisting of industry, government, and academia. The purpose of this society is to provide broad contributions to human society by disseminating information worldwide through the publication of scientific papers and newsletters, by utilizing the WWW and other means of electronic communication, and by organizing lectures, seminars, exhibitions, etc. from time to time.