Virtual reality, everyone knows, but for many it is a recent concept. However, do you know its real story? Because, indeed, the precepts of VR date back to the 1950s. Come on, we tell you everything!
Sensorama by Morton Heilig.
The first virtual reality device was born in the 1950s with Morton Heilig's Sensorama, which reproduced a theater experience using 4 of the 5 senses of the spectator: sight, smell, hearing and to touch. What even current virtual reality headsets do not offer! He will patent his project in 1960, but unfortunately will die before his project takes shape.
As for virtual reality headsets, the foundations were born in the 1960s, they were imagined by the American company Philco which invented the first Head Mounted Display (screen mounted on the head), this headset had been designed for CCTV. Thus, it allowed the security guard to view the surveillance images inside the headset. Connected by a cathode ray tube, the camera followed the movements of the operator's head.
The first proper virtual reality headset was created in the 70s at the University of Utah by Daniel Vickers. Made up of two screens, the headset gives the user the possibility of observing the virtual scene presented to him by turning his head.
At the same time, the term “artificial reality” will be coined by computer scientist Myron Krueger.
As for the army, it continues to develop work started in the 60s to obtain flight simulators, the military engineer Thomas Furness will release the Super Cockpit project, an immersive flight simulator capable of projecting 3D maps, infrared images and radar!
The year 1989 marked the opening of virtual reality to the general public with the Nintendo Power Glove, an electronic glove inspired by the DataGlove (a device that measures the movements of the hand and fingers then communicates them to the computer created in 1982 ) in a very light version. Too limited in capacity, the Power Glove was a failure, because it took up only 4 attributes of the DataGlove.
In 1991, Sega began developing a VR headset for its Sega Genesis console, but this project never saw the light of day for fear that the renderings would be too realistic and people would get hurt. A good idea for them (!), since in 1995, Nintendo released its Virtual Boy VR headset which was a commercial failure.
Finally, from 1998, most virtual reality interfaces are accessible to the general public, but it will only be from 2010 with the creation of the Oculus Rift VR headset by Palmer Luckey, its acquisition by Facebook in 2014 and then the first marketable version in 2016, that virtual reality will eventually become more democratic.
And it was in 2019 that Nootty appeared on this market, when Rodolphe and Pierrick created the application allowing interior design professionals to immerse their customers in the heart of their future interior design.
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