The Spatial Computing Glossary: 21 Field Terms From Virtual Reality to Depth Sensing Defined

This glossary defines 21 terms currently used across virtual reality, augmented reality, and spatial computing, from broad concepts like spatial computing and spatial world down to specific mechanisms like world-anchoring, occlusion, and depth sensing, reporting how the field itself uses each word rather than arguing the author's own framework. Each entry states the one meaning a term currently carries in industry and research use, starting with virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, and extended reality, then moving through the mechanisms that support them: six degrees of freedom, occlusion, passthrough, world-anchoring, field of view, hand tracking, eye tracking, spatial mapping, haptics, immersion, presence, heads-up displays, persistence, latency, and depth sensing. The glossary is built as a reference, not an argument. It reports how companies, researchers, and journalists currently use each word, and says nothing about which devices actually deserve the label, a separate question the author takes up in the other four papers in this series. Entries run from the broadest terms toward the specific technical mechanisms that support them, so a reader can work through the whole document or look up one term on its own. The aim is a single citable definition for words that currently carry different meanings from one article to the next. This is the fifth and final paper in the series.