Exorex Popular Books

Exorex Biography & Facts

Virtuality was a range of virtual reality machines produced by Virtuality Group, and found in video arcades in the early 1990s. The machines delivered real-time VR gaming via a stereoscopic VR headset, joysticks, tracking devices and networked units for a multi-player experience. Virtuality Group was originally founded in October 1987 as "W Industries", named after Dr. Jonathan D Waldern, and renamed to Virtuality in 1993. Work by Waldern at the Human Computer Interface Research Unit of Leicester Polytechnic (now De Montfort University), which later moved to Loughborough University, had by 1986 produced a system known as the "Roaming Caterpillar" that could deliver a stereoscopic view of a three-dimensional scene. The image was viewed on a moveable CRT screen using shutter glasses, with head and hand tracking incorporating acoustic sensors to determine the user's position. Waldern subsequently formed W Industries to commercialise 3D visualisation technology together with colleagues Al Humrich, Richard Holmes and Terry Rowley. The team would produce multiple prototype VR units (including the "giraffe", which was a mechanically tracked headset mounted on a boom arm) with a fifth prototype version being produced by 1989 that would form the basis of the first commercially released Virtuality system. The Virtuality 1000SU VR system was launched in 1990 at the Computer Graphics ’90 exhibition held at Alexandra Palace in London. There were two types of units, referred to by the company as "pods". In one version the player stood up (SU) and in the other they sat down (SD). Both unit types used a virtual reality headset as a display (described as a "visette" in Virtuality documentation) that contained a pair of LCD screens originally with a resolution of 372x250 per eye. Four speakers and a microphone were also built into the headset. The first two networked VR systems were sold to British Telecom Research Laboratories to experiment with networked telepresence applications. Many other systems were sold to corporations including Ford, IBM, Mitsubishi and Olin. The availability of Virtuality systems coincided with a rise in public interest in virtual reality technology in the early 1990s, exemplified by the movie Lawnmower Man. To capitalise on this interest and determining that the largest market for the devices would be gaming, Virtuality produced an arcade variant of the 1000SU for public use called the 1000CS which was released in 1991. The CS postfix referred to "cyberspace" branding which was consistent with language being used in popular media to describe VR environments at the time. Several non-gaming virtual reality systems were also created by the company including a VR attraction in partnership with Creative Agency Imagination for the launch of the 1995 Ford Galaxy and a virtual trading floor for the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE). Sales of arcade gaming systems ultimately declined following the general trend of customers transitioning to primarily home gaming. Virtuality did attempt to produce home VR systems but efforts were not successful and the company entered bankruptcy in 1997. Virtuality assets were sold to Cybermind Interactive Europe. By this time about 1,200 Virtuality arcade machines were in use. The arcade assets were acquired by Arcadian VR in 2004 and then by VirtuosityTech in 2012. 1000 Series The original 1000CS and 1000SD Virtuality units were powered by a Commodore Amiga 3000 with 4 MB of fast RAM and a CD-ROM. The Amiga included a pair of graphics accelerators (one for each eye) based around the Texas Instruments TMS34020 GSP (Graphics System Processor) chips with a TMS34082 floating point co-processor. Each of these cards could deliver about 40 Mflops with a capability to render 30,000 polygons/s at 20FPS. The 1000 series headset used a pair of LCD screens supplied by Panasonic with a resolution of 372x250 that were derived from a camcorder accessory. The screens were too heavy to be positioned directly in front of the user's eyes as the weight would unbalance the headset and drag it forwards. For this reason the screens were positioned either side of the headset and reflected with mirrors into the lenses. The 1000CS version featured 6dof AC magnetic tracking delivered by a Polhemus Fastrack unit embedded in the waist height ring that surrounded the player. This device tracked both the headset and the freely moving controller, which was known as the "space joystick". The space joystick has two buttons. One button is typically used as a trigger for the game (e.g. a fire button) and the other button moves the player in the direction they are facing. The space joystick was holstered in a belt worn by the player that is tethered to the headset. The SD version used a considerably lower cost DC magnetic tracking solution from Ascension that had the disadvantage of a shorter range. This issue was however acceptable given the user was seated and could not freely roam around. A bar (resembling a car roll cage) was mounted over the player's head that contained the tracking unit and maintained close proximity to the headset. The Ascension unit could only track one object and therefore could not track a controller in addition to the headset, however in this version the user used a fixed joystick, steering wheel or aircraft yoke (depending on the game) and a freely moving controller was not necessary. 1000CS games There were four original games for the 1000CS unit: Dactyl Nightmare - A first-person multi-player shooter featuring a map on several levels where players compete in deathmatch or capture the flag game modes. A pterodactyl flies overhead and occasionally swoops down to pick up unwary players. Players are represented by 3D human avatars drawn with polygons, the player can look down and see their own representation, and carry weapons that fire projectiles reacting to gravity. Grid Busters - Robot shoot-em-up. Hero - Locked door puzzle. Legend Quest - Fantasy adventure. 1000SD games Battlesphere - a space battle game. Exorex - a multi-player mecha robot battle game (originally released under the title "Heavy Metal"). Total Destruction - a stock car racing game. VTOL - a Harrier jump jet simulator. Flying Aces - a biplane dogfight simulator. Virtuality's release surprised the existing VR industry. Despite crude graphics, it offered what Computer Gaming World in 1992 described as "all the necessary hallmarks of a fully immersive system at what, to many, is a cheap price. The main complaint ... has so far been its lack of resolution and software support". 2000 Series The 2000SU and SD models were introduced in 1994 with texture mapping and other enhanced graphics capabilities. The headset used in these models was a redesigned lighter weight version, with a higher resolution of 800x600 pixels per eye delivered by two 1.6" LCD screens now mounted for direct viewing and offering a wider field of view with an impro.... Discover the Exorex popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Exorex books.