Today, the reality we know can be recorded and reproduced true to reality using technical processes. Space and time are recreated virtually as a copy in artificial reality. However, the reproduction of virtual reality is not limited to a mere copy of what exists. A visitor to the virtual space does not have to be content with the pixelated image of the old familiar, but can encounter unreal phenomena in the illusory world that never existed in real life or are even physically impossible. This enables an expansion of the recorded reality and allows the perception of surprisingly new perspectives. This book is a translation of the original German 1st edition Grundlagen der virtuellen Realität by Armin Grasnick, published by Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature in 2020. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Springer Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and on the related technologies to support the authors. A perspective denotes the perception of a fact from a certain point of view and corresponds to the way of looking at things. But a perspective is also the observation of a scene from a viewing position. From different perspectives the illusion of reality arises during the reproduction by observation. This vision is not based on imagination or hallucination, but is the basic function of virtual reality. This book describes the concepts, systems, and technologies used to create virtual reality from its ancient beginnings to the present, and provides a glimpse into a possible future. The Contents Discovery of perspective - The natural perception of perspective and its reproduction Images from light - The recording and reproduction of reality Virtual illusions - The creation of spatial images Virtual spaces - The creation of illusory worlds The Author Armin Grasnick is a trained precision optician and holds a doctorate in optical engineering. He started in the 90's with the development of methods for 3D imaging that do not require 3D glasses. Dr. Grasnick is the author of the book "3D without 3D glasses".