Virtual Reality

With time, there have been created several ways of stimulat- ing our senses, and even more from the twentieth century with the rise of electronics and computer science. Morton Heilig is considered the inventor of VR, with his creations. In 1957, he developed the Sensorama, an arcade-style cabinet stimu- lating all the senses, not just sight and hearing.  The Sensorama had stereoscopic 3D stereo speakers, a screen, fans, odor generators and a vibrating chair. In 1960, the next invention of Morton Heilig was the Telesphere Mask. This was the first example of a head-mounted display (HDM), although there were no motion tracking. Soon after, in 1961, Comeau and Bryan, employees at Philco Corporation, developed the ’Headsight’ - the first example of a HMD as we know it today. It had a video screen for each eye and a motion tracking system, allowing it to determine the direction of the head.

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In 1965, Ivan Sutherland published the ”Ultimate Display” paper which predicted the path of technology towards virtual reality, HMDs and more. In 1984, VPL Research was founded by Jaron Lanier. This company was one of the first ones to sell VR goggles and gloves. By the beginning of the 1990’s, the Virtuality Group launched a series of arcade games where players were able to use a set of VR glasses while playing games. Around the same time, Sega announced a VR headset with stereo and LCD screens, but the difficulties of technical development made the device remain at prototype stage.

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The Matrix movie, released in 1999, had a significant cultural impact and brought the issue of VR to society. In the years after, VR began seeing serious developments. Developments within computer technology increased and the rise of smart phones be- gan. Some years into the twenty-first century, smart phones with high-quality displays and 3D graphics capabilities have enabled a generation of VR. The video game industry are continuously promoting the development of virtual reality. [1] A timeline of the evolution and development of VR is shown in the figure below, or you can watch a more extended version in the video.