Cybermind

Cybermind
Information
Industry	Head-mounted displays, near-to-eye displays
Founded	1997
Founder	Vincent Graham
Headquarters	Maastricht, Netherlands
Products	Visette45 SXGA, Cyber-I, hi-Res series

Cybermind was a Dutch company that made VR headsets. It changed its name to Cinoptics. The full name of the company was Cybermind Interactive Nederland (CIN). It was founded in 1997 by Vincent Graham, started out as a distributor of virtual reality equipment in Europe, and from 2005 designed and built its own head-mounted displays for research, aerospace, defence, medical and industrial customers. Its products included the Visette45 SXGA stereoscopic headset and the Cyber-I optical see-through displays for augmented reality.

CIN stands for Cybermind Interactive Nederland. The company adopted the brand name Cinoptics on 1 September 2014. The Dutch legal entity, Cybermind B.V., was declared bankrupt in March 2020.

Reviewed 27 September 2026. Checked the founding, 2014 rename, 1997 Virtuality asset sale, Display Daily ITEC report, 2020 bankruptcy record, and all product specifications and prices against the cited Cinoptics datasheets, Tech Monitor, DVHARDWARE, stereo3d.com, Mindflux, Engadget and research papers. About review dates.

History

Virtuality assets

Cybermind purchased headset assets from Virtuality in the first great VR deflation, including Vissette assets. Rights to the entertainment machines (but not the Virtuality brand) were sold to CyberMind UK. Thereafter CyberMind UK was sold to Arcadian Virtual Reality LLC. According to ViRtuosityTech, Arcadian operated in the United States until 2012, when ViRtuosityTech acquired it together with exclusive rights to the SU2000 and SU3000 simulators "by Virtuality Entertainment, Inc. and Cybermind".

Trade press in 1997 named the buyer as Berlin-based Cybermind Interactive Europe. In August 1997 Computer Business Review reported that the company had bought the European entertainment business of Virtuality Group Plc, whose trading had been suspended that February, along with the rights to the Elysium immersive VR system that Virtuality had first developed in a joint venture with IBM. A later report said Cybermind had held the manufacturing contract for Virtuality's location-based entertainment systems, bought the remaining stock and spare parts, and planned to keep developing those systems on open standards instead of Virtuality's proprietary hardware and software. It had no plans to develop Elysium. The same report described the Berlin company as founded in 1993 by Holger Timm, listed on the Berlin stock exchange, and active in internet cafes, game centers and multimedia hardware and software. The Virtual Reality Society's history of Virtuality says Virtuality's machines passed from Cybermind to Arcadian Virtual Reality and then to Virtuosity Systems, which rented them out as a retro novelty.

The Dutch company kept the Visette name. In its 2013 Cyber-I datasheet, CIN stated that it owned the trademarks Visette (its high-end HMD line), hi-Res (an assembly kit for third-party technology) and V-Flexor (a hand-held navigator). In 2017, Cinoptics staff told Display Daily that Cybermind "came from Virtuality".

Distributor to manufacturer

Cinoptics' company history says CIN became the leading European distributor of virtual reality equipment soon after its founding in 1997. The stereo3d.com market overview listed Cybermind NL among the dealers for several Sony Glasstron models, and two of CIN's early headsets were ruggedized versions of third-party displays: the hi-Res800 was built on the Sony LDI-(D)100 and the hi-Res900 on the Daeyang Cy-Visor DH-4400VP.

The company then moved from reselling to its own technology. Its first in-house products were delivered in 2005 to research and aerospace customers; it entered the defence sector in 2010 and the medical and industrial markets in 2013. In late 2005 it launched the Visette45 SXGA at the I/ITSEC training and simulation conference in Orlando, Florida, where the headset was shown on the InterSense exhibit. A 2014 datasheet gave the head office and R&D center as the BioPartner Center in Maastricht and described CIN as a privately held Dutch limited company.

Rebrand as Cinoptics

On 1 September 2014 Cybermind Interactive Nederland announced Cinoptics as its new name and corporate identity, together with new products and services, a new head office in Maastricht and a new website. The company said its main business had become the manufacture and development of professional digital optics, so it wanted a name that matched that work. Cinoptics kept the Cybermind name as a product line on its website, alongside its own Cinoptics products, OEM products, and trackers and datagloves.

At the ITEC defence training exhibition in May 2017, Cinoptics exhibited on the Netherlands stand. Display Daily reported that it made monocular and binocular headsets for professional near-to-eye AR and VR, mainly using Sony OLED microdisplays and Kopin displays, and that one application built for the Dutch police sent information and instructions to the wearer from a central control room. The company was using USB-C with DisplayPort Alt mode and USB power delivery, and said its systems drew no more than 2.5 W.

Bankruptcy

Cybermind B.V., registered under the same Chamber of Commerce number (14629263) printed on CIN's 2014 datasheet and trading as Cinoptics Defence, was declared bankrupt by the District Court of Limburg on 10 March 2020. FailAlert's summary of the curator's report, which names the company as CIN Industries BV, says it had developed and sold VR headsets, that its activities had already been wound down when it was declared bankrupt, and that the bankruptcy was caused by the failure to apply for a patent on the technology it had developed and by heavy competition from large market players. The bankruptcy proceedings were closed on 12 April 2024.

Products

Product	Year	Type	Notes
Visette Pro		Stereoscopic VR HMD	LCD, 640 x 480 x 3
Visette45 SXGA	2005	Stereoscopic VR HMD; see-through and video see-through versions	FLCoS, 1280 x 1024, 45 degree field of view
hi-Res800 PC	2005	HMD	2 panel LCD, 800 x 600 x 3, 24 bit, 26 degree diagonal, 3D
hi-Res800 (ruggedized Sony LDI-(D)100)	1999	HMD	2 panel LCD, 800 x 600
hi-Res900	2001	HMD	2 panel LCOS, 800 x 600 x 3, 31.2 degree diagonal
hi-Res900-3D (ruggedized Cy-Visor DH-4400VP)	2001	Stereoscopic HMD	Listed at US$3,500 for the 3D version
Cyber-I SXGA Monocular		Optical see-through monocular AR HMD	FLCoS, 1280 x 1024, 50 degree field of view
Cyber-I SXGA Bi-ocular		Optical see-through AR HMD	SXGA optical see-through, stereo camera support
Virtual Binoculars		Handheld virtual binoculars	Listed in the Cybermind product line

Visette Pro

The Visette Pro was a stereoscopic headset with an LCD for each eye at 640 x 480. The Virtuality.com product page lists the Visette Pro with dual poly-silicon TFT active-matrix LCDs at 640 x 480 (307,200 pixels), a field of view of 60 degrees horizontal by 46.8 degrees vertical (71.5 degrees diagonal) and a weight of 840 grams. Researchers from Delft University of Technology and Leiden University used a "stereoscopic Cybermind Visette Pro" with 640 x 480 per display at 60 Hz, tracked by an Ascension Flock of Birds, in a study of physiological responses to neutral virtual worlds used as baselines in exposure therapy.

Visette45 SXGA

CIN described the Visette45 SXGA as "the first affordable high-end Head Mounted Display for professional Virtual and Augmented Reality applications." It is a binocular, fully stereoscopic headset, offered as a standard model and in see-through and video see-through versions. When it was shown in 2005, the headset used an SXGA chipset from CRLO Displays, and Cybermind's Vincent Graham said the design allowed a lightweight, low-power HMD with a see-through option. DVHARDWARE reported a weight under 600 grams. A 2016 Engadget retrospective put its 2005 price at 12,000 US dollars; the stereo3d.com overview listed it at under 10,000 US dollars.

Visette45 SXGA specifications (2014 datasheet)

Item	Value
Display	FLCoS, reflecting, single plate type
Resolution	SXGA (1280x1024), about 1.3 million pixels x RGB
Pixel pitch	13.62 μm
Color depth	24 bits
Response time	0.1 ms
Active area	0.88 inch
Contrast	300:1
Virtual screen	80 inch at an image distance of 2 m
Field of view	45 deg [36 deg (H) x 27.4 deg (V)]
Exit pupil	12 mm (H) x 6 mm (V)
Focal length	280 mm
Light source	LED (red, green, blue)
Inputs	Analog RGB, DVI, Composite (NTSC/PAL), S-video; dual input optional
Tracking options	InertiaCube3 integration; custom solutions for Polhemus, Ascension and InertiaCube2

The datasheet lists medical research, military training, industrial research and location-based entertainment as key applications. A 2009 review of virtual reality for upper-limb stroke rehabilitation in the Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine illustrated a robotic and VR setup that used a Visette 45 SXGA, credited to "Cybermind B.V., Maastricht, the Netherlands".

hi-Res900

The hi-Res900 was an 800 x 600 SVGA headset with an injection-moulded body and a "twist adjustment" headband that could be worn over glasses. Mindflux's product page listed a field of view of 31.2 degrees diagonal, a weight of 650 g (700 g with an InterTrax tracker fitted in the shell), a 180 g control box, and inputs for VGA, S-VHS and composite video.

Cyber-I

The Cyber-I line was optical see-through headsets for augmented reality. CIN's datasheet for the Cyber-I SXGA Monocular calls it the first SXGA optical see-through monocular with a fixed camera option and a 50 degree field of view. It uses an SXGA (1280x1024) FLCoS display, is 70% transparent as standard, has a field of view of 50 deg [39 deg (H) x 31.25 deg (V)], and weighs 280 g for the monocular alone without upper headband, cable and camera. It accepts VGA and DVI, and HDMI through a DVI/HDMI changer, so it can be driven by smartphones and tablets. Listed options include eye tracking, IR LEDs, a microphone, voice recognition, headphones, an external belt battery pack and a wearable PC. The target uses named in the datasheet are homeland security and defence training and simulation, maintenance and logistics, telemaintenance, telepresence, and support for medical procedures. Cinoptics says the bi-ocular version was the first high-resolution (SXGA) optical see-through HMD to be commercially available for AR applications.

See also

• Virtuality
• The first great VR deflation
• Head-mounted display
• Sony Glasstron