# Symmetrical Reality: Toward a Unified Framework for Physical and Virtual Reality

## TL;DR

This paper introduces the concept of symmetrical reality, a unified framework that integrates physical and virtual realities, allowing traditional VR, AR, and their inverse forms to be understood under a common perspective.

## Contribution

It proposes a novel unified framework called symmetrical reality that encompasses various forms of physical and virtual environments in a single conceptual model.

## Key findings

- Symmetrical reality unifies physical and virtual worlds.
- Traditional VR, AR, and inverse forms are special cases within the framework.
- Analysis from physical and virtual perspectives clarifies the framework's scope.

## Abstract

In this paper, we review the background of physical reality, virtual reality, and some traditional mixed forms of them. Based on the current knowledge, we propose a new unified concept called symmetrical reality to describe the physical and virtual world in a unified perspective. Under the framework of symmetrical reality, the traditional virtual reality, augmented reality, inverse virtual reality, and inverse augmented reality can be interpreted using a unified presentation. We analyze the characteristics of symmetrical reality from two different observation locations (i.e., from the physical world and from the virtual world), where all other forms of physical and virtual reality can be treated as special cases of symmetrical reality.