ATPL 's mission is to create, develop and commercialise virtual reality
(VR) technology that is applicable to the mass markets.
The mechanics of Virtual Reality have been understood for a long time.
One of the key components of any fully immersive VR system is fast
accurate tracking of the user's head movements.
The major advances in visual display systems and the accurate tracking of head movements to determine the correct virtual view make for a highly engaging and immersive experience. True virtual reality is a whole of body experience with an accent on the movement and orientation of the head. The public are well aware of the technology in concept and are ready to embrace it once it becomes available more cheaply.
A virtual Reality system is made up of two main and integral parts.
This is an area of great cost and is the single most obvious reason why virtual reality technology is not more widely available. Currently, massive amounts of infrastructure and/or money is required to manufacture the realistic illusion of being somewhere else. The two main parts of the hardware infrastructure are:
The HMD is a crucial device in the delivery of Virtual Reality. Humans receive almost all of their sensory input about their surroundings through their eyes. The fullscreen 3D immersive view with some head tracking offered by some of the HMD manufacturers today is remarkable. (See Kaiser) Unfortunately, so is the price of this hardware. The viewer that offers the largest viewing area and highest resolution offers the mind the best chance of "believing" that it is somewhere else. The mind is more than willing to suspend disbelief in the case of Virtual Reality, however, and much less expensive HMDs (see I-Glasses) can be acceptable depending upon the application. The future HMD models are looking more immersive, less bulky and are hopefully less expensive than some of the high performance HMDs available today. (see X-eye) They also remove the tracking component from the design and concentrate on the delivery of a great image. This allows for the integration of a separate tracking system.
Still others have gone for multiple projectors on the walls, ceiling and floor (See Fakespace Cave) or large curved screen (see Virtual Realms) to present the illusion of otherworld surroundings. These can also require head mounted shutter glasses which control the staccato delivery of information to each eye. The major disadvantage of these systems is the inconvenience and expense of large amounts of hardware and the provision of a dedicated space in which to house it. Some, including the Kaiser have some head tracking built into their unit but once again, the cost of these units is prohibitive.
The tracking system employed is also crucial to the delivery of the experience we are all anticipating. Some tracking systems employ arrays of detectors or lights around the room (see HiBall) Others employ head-mounted lights or devices which are heavy and cumbersome. Other designs include models with fluid filled chambers and magnetic field line detection. Some of the early models tracked too slowly or inaccurately causing nausea which resulted in antipathy toward the technology from its natural market, the computer geek. There are many ways to despatch this particular feline but as yet no technology has fired the public imagination into the belief that it is accessible to them.
This is the controlling mechanism for the hardware employed in the simulation and must be fast and accurate, whichever system of image determination and delivery is employed. It must determine the position and orientation of the users head and thus the view he should receive within the simulation.
Anderson Technologies offers a virtual reality system different to all others on the market. Our system relies on existing HMDs for the image delivery system and can be integrated with any HMD on the market employing SVGA or digital format.
Our expertise lies in the manufacture of tracking software which can be integrated into a target application to provide VR unequalled in performance and freedom of movement.