Canon

Canon
Information
Type	Public (TSE: 7751)
Industry	Imaging, optics, mixed reality
Founded	August 10, 1937
Founder	Takeshi Mitarai, Goro Yoshida, Saburo Uchida, Takeo Maeda
Headquarters	Ota, Tokyo, Japan
Notable Personnel	Fujio Mitarai (Chairman and CEO)
Products	Cameras, lenses, MREAL mixed reality headsets, EOS VR System
Website	https://global.canon

Canon Inc. is a Japanese multinational company best known for cameras, lenses, printers, and optical equipment, with a long-running side business in Mixed Reality and Virtual Reality hardware aimed mostly at enterprise users. The company was founded in Tokyo on August 10, 1937, growing out of a small optical laboratory set up in 1933, and is headquartered in Ota, Tokyo. Its name derives from Kannon, the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy, after an early prototype camera called the Kwanon; the firm became Canon Camera Co., Inc. in 1947 and was shortened to Canon Inc. in 1969. The chairman and chief executive is Fujio Mitarai.

Within the Extended Reality field, Canon is unusual in that it approaches the space from imaging and optics rather than gaming. Its main contributions are the MREAL line of video see-through mixed reality headsets, sold to manufacturers and designers, and the EOS VR System, a set of dual fisheye lenses and software that let its still cameras capture stereoscopic 180-degree 3D video for VR Headsets.

History

Canon traces its origins to the Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory, founded in Tokyo in 1933, and was formally established as Precision Optical Industry Co., Ltd. on August 10, 1937. The "Canon" branding came from the Kwanon prototype camera of 1934, itself named after the bodhisattva Kannon. The company adopted the Canon Camera Co., Inc. name in 1947 and simplified it to Canon Inc. in 1969, by which point it had expanded well beyond cameras into office equipment, optics, and later semiconductor lithography and medical imaging.

Canon's interest in mixed reality is older than the consumer VR boom. The company says its mixed reality research began in 1997, though the underlying technology did not become a shippable product until 2012. That long lead time reflected the difficulty of aligning live camera video with computer graphics precisely enough to make virtual objects look like they were really in the room.

MREAL mixed reality system

MREAL (pronounced "em-ree-AL") is Canon's enterprise Mixed Reality platform. It uses a video see-through approach: cameras mounted at eye level capture the real world, computer-generated 3D content is composited into that footage in real time, and the merged image is shown on small displays inside the headset. Because the real world is captured and redrawn rather than viewed through a transparent lens, virtual objects can appear solid and life-size rather than translucent, which Canon positions as an advantage over optical see-through devices.

The first MREAL product launched in Japan in July 2012, built around the HM-A1 head-mounted display and the MP-100 software platform. Canon brought MREAL to the United States on March 1, 2013, with a starting price of 125,000 US dollars plus around 25,000 US dollars in annual maintenance, aimed squarely at automotive designers, manufacturers, aerospace and defense firms, university researchers, and museum exhibit curators rather than consumers. The headset combined two front-facing cameras with directional sensors and a free-form prism optical system, and Canon offered an SDK so the device could plug into design software such as Siemens NX and RTT DeltaGen.

Over the following decade Canon iterated on the hardware, shrinking it considerably while widening the field of view. A central feature throughout has been Spatial Feature Positioning Technology, which lets the system track its position using ordinary environmental features such as floor patterns or desks, without requiring special markers or external optical sensors. Typical applications include design review and prototyping in manufacturing, construction visualization, automotive showrooms, and exhibitions, where reviewers can inspect full-scale digital models before anything is physically built.

The MREAL S1, announced in October 2020 and released in Japan in early 2021, weighs about 137 grams and was billed by Canon as the smallest and lightest video see-through MR device in the MREAL line at the time; it can be worn head-mounted for hands-free work or held up like binoculars. See Canon MREAL S1 for details on that model. The MREAL X1, announced on April 22, 2022, kept the palm-sized form factor while delivering the largest display in the series, with a 58-degree horizontal by 60-degree vertical field of view (roughly 2.5 times the area of the S1's 45 by 34 degrees) and a 1,920 by 2,160 resolution per eye. Like its predecessors, the X1 was kept in enterprise market research rather than sold as a consumer product, and pricing was quoted on request.

EOS VR System

Separate from MREAL, Canon built the EOS VR System to let its mirrorless cameras shoot content for VR headsets. The system pairs a dual fisheye lens with a compatible EOS R-series camera and Canon's EOS VR software, so that left-eye and right-eye images are captured side by side on a single sensor and then converted into a standard 180-degree 3D format.

The system launched with the RF 5.2mm F2.8 L Dual Fisheye lens, announced on October 6, 2021. Canon described it as the first interchangeable dual fisheye lens able to record stereoscopic 3D 180-degree VR to a single image sensor. The lens uses two fisheye optics spaced 60mm apart (close to human eye separation) for natural-looking stereo, each covering a 190-degree field of view, and it shipped in late December 2021 for about 1,999 US dollars. It works with the EOS R5 after a firmware update and is paired with two subscription tools, EOS VR Utility and the EOS VR Plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro, which handle the conversion from the raw dual-fisheye capture to an editable equirectangular VR file.

Canon later broadened the system to smaller, cheaper cameras. The RF-S 3.9mm F3.5 STM Dual Fisheye, announced on June 10, 2024, brought dual fisheye VR capture to APS-C bodies such as the EOS R7. It keeps the 60mm lens spacing but covers a 144-degree field of view, became Canon's first 3D lens with autofocus, and carried a suggested price of about 1,099 US dollars.

Kokomo

At CES in January 2022, Canon previewed Kokomo, a social Virtual Reality platform built around its imaging technology. Rather than the cartoon avatars common to social VR, Kokomo uses a compatible Canon camera, a VR headset, and a smartphone to place a live, photoreal video likeness of each participant into a shared virtual environment, so callers see one another's real faces and expressions in settings such as Malibu, New York, or Hawaii. Canon demonstrated the concept at CES using the RF 5.2mm F2.8 L Dual Fisheye lens and framed it as a more lifelike form of remote communication, an effort it has called the "Real Together" experience.

Products

Canon's XR-related products fall into two groups: the MREAL enterprise mixed reality headsets, and the EOS VR System lenses and software for VR video capture.

Product	Year	Type	Notable details
MREAL System (HM-A1 + MP-100)	2012 (Japan), 2013 (US)	Enterprise video see-through MR	First MREAL product; launched in the US March 1, 2013 from 125,000 US dollars; free-form prism optics; SDK for design software
MREAL S1	2020 (announced), 2021 (release)	Enterprise video see-through MR	About 137 g; head-mounted or handheld; called the smallest and lightest MREAL at launch
MREAL X1	2022	Enterprise video see-through MR	Announced April 22, 2022; 58 x 60 degree FoV; 1,920 x 2,160 per eye; largest display in the series; enterprise market research
RF 5.2mm F2.8 L Dual Fisheye	2021	EOS VR System lens	Announced October 6, 2021; first interchangeable dual fisheye for single-sensor 3D 180-degree VR; 190-degree FoV; about 1,999 US dollars; works with EOS R5
RF-S 3.9mm F3.5 STM Dual Fisheye	2024	EOS VR System lens	Announced June 10, 2024; APS-C dual fisheye for the EOS R7; 144-degree FoV; first Canon 3D lens with autofocus; about 1,099 US dollars
Kokomo	2022 (preview)	Social VR platform	Previewed at CES 2022; photoreal live video calls in VR using a Canon camera, headset, and phone

Market position

Canon is a peripheral but persistent player in extended reality. Its MREAL headsets occupy a narrow, high-end enterprise niche, competing less with consumer devices like the Apple Vision Pro than with other professional visualization tools, and they have stayed largely focused on the Japanese market with limited English-language availability. The EOS VR System, by contrast, leans on Canon's strength in optics to serve VR video creators who want to shoot stereoscopic 180-degree footage with familiar camera bodies, an area where the single-sensor dual fisheye approach simplifies the otherwise fiddly process of stitching two separate cameras together.