Evolution of Virtual Reality

In 1957 filmmaker Morton Heilig invented a "large booth-like machine called the Sensorama". It was intended to give users the illusion of being in a 3D immersive world, complete with smell, stern sound, vibrations and atmospheric effects like wind. In 1960 he developed his idea to create the first head-mounted display which he patent. Alas he never created this idea but the idea helped lay the groundwork for future VR.


"Sword of Damocles"

In 1968, computer scientist,  Ivan Sutherland created the first VR head-mounted display (HMD). This versions connected to a stereoscopic display from a computer program which depicted simple virtual wireframe shapes. These shapes changed perspective when the user moved their head. These shapes were also displayed on a real background so it could also be considered the birth of augmented reality. However due to the headgear being to heavy, it never developed more than just a lab project.

"The super Cockpit 1970-80s"

Around the same time military engineer, Thomas Furness developed the "Super Cockpit". He created "a training cockpit with computer generated 3D maps, infrared and radar imagery as well as avionics data into real-time 3D space". This device allowed trainee pilots to control an aircraft using "gestures, speech and eye movements."

Sega was one of the first companies to attempt to launch a VR headset. Development started in 1991. "The design has a sleek black plastic design that concealed LCD displays, stereo headphones and internal inertial sensors for tracking head movement."

In 2010, 18 year old Palmer Luckey created the first prototype of the Oculus Rift. It had a 90 degree field view. It raised $2.4 million on Kickstarter and was purchased by Facebook for $2 billion in 2014.

In 2017 many companies are working on their own VR Headsets such as Google Cardboard, Apple, amazon, Sony, etc.


https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/history-of-virtual-reality/