- Future Vision Technologies
Future Vision Technologies (FVT), operating from 1991 to 1995, was part of the second wave of companies working to commercialize
virtual reality technology. The company was founded by a team out of the Advanced Digital Systems Laboratory in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign . The three original members,Matt Klapman ,David Frerichs Frerichs Bio [http://www.frerichs.net/bio.html] ] , andKevin Lee , were later joined byJohn Belmonte . The company ceased to be an active entity when it's PC card business was sold to Fujitsu MicroelectronicsFujitsu Microelectronics Purchases FVT [http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Fujitsu+Microelectronics+Inc.+forms+new+graphics+products...-a016536569] ] .Products
The company produced a number of products which appear to be first of their kind in the market.
* Stuntmaster Head Mounted Display (HMD) - Stuntmaster was the first consumerhead mounted display to ship in the marketNewsgroup post referencing initial release of Stuntmaster [http://groups.google.com/group/sci.virtual-worlds/browse_thread/thread/4776cf57ced1d4c/1a66d26c1d26b2fe?lnk=gst&q=stuntmaster+ces#1a66d26c1d26b2fe] ] The low-resolution, monocular device shipped with a patentedFVT First Headtracker Patent [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,323,174.PN.&OS=PN/5,323,174&RS=PN/5,323,174] ] FVT Second Headtracker Patent [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5,353,042.PN.&OS=PN/5,353,042&RS=PN/5,353,042] ] mechanical head tracker which had fast response times and accurate positioning. The product itself was marketed and sold under license by Victormaxx.* Sapphire IME with Pixel Bus - Sapphire IME integrated 3D graphics card graphics and audio output. A major innovation, demonstrated at AES 94 in Washington, DC and at
Siggraph 94 in Orlando, FL, USA, was the ability to chain multiple cards together across multiple Pentium-class personal computers to create a single simulation environment known as aVR CAVE . The Siggraph 94 demonstration consisted of three Sapphire IME cards installed in three Pentium (90MHz) computers driving three sychronized Barco projectors. Each screen was running frame-interlaced stereo, allowing users wearing LCD shutter glasses to be fully immersed in the scene. Until this demonstration, VR CAVE implementations had only been implemented using high-end graphics workstations from companies like Silicon Graphics. [http://www.evl.uic.edu/pape/CAVE/oldCAVE/CAVE.overview.html] UIC VR CAVE Historical Overview]* InterFACE Portable Virtual Environment Generator
Contemporary Virtual Reality Companies
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Autodesk (Cyberspace Developer Kit Group)
*Division
*Fakespace
*Micron Green
*Polhemus
*Sense8
*Vream References
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