DataSuit
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| DataSuit[1][2] | |
|---|---|
| Basic Info | |
| VR/AR | Virtual Reality |
| Type | Input Devices |
| Subtype | Motion capture suit |
| Platform | VPL RB2 (Reality Built for Two) system |
| Developer | VPL Research |
| Manufacturer | VPL Research |
| Tracking | |
| Tracking | Polhemus magnetic sensors on the head, back and pelvis |
| Hand Tracking | Integrated left and right DataGloves |
| Device | |
| Material | One-piece, full-body stretch garment |
| Sensors | Joint-bend sensors, hip and shoulder rotation sensors, Polhemus position sensors, heel pressure sensors in the sandals |
The DataSuit was a full-body motion-sensing garment made by VPL Research in the late 1980s as an extension of the company's DataGlove. Sensors in the suit measured the bending of the wearer's joints, while magnetic trackers reported the position of the body in the room, so that a computer could reproduce the wearer's posture and movement. VPL described the suit in a technical paper in 1988 and offered it as an optional body-input device for its "Reality Built for Two" (RB2) virtual reality system, alongside the DataGlove and the EyePhone head-mounted display.[2][1]
The 1988 paper that introduced the suit listed teleoperation, telepresence, human performance modeling and animation as its applications, and a 1990 NASA publication reported that film actors wore it to animate computer-generated characters.[2][3] A 1993 encyclopedia of virtual environment technology reported that the suit was not yet commercially available because of the complex calibration it needed for each new user.[4]
Development
The sensing principle came from the DataGlove. According to NASA's 1990 Spinoff, Jaron Lanier persuaded Thomas G. Zimmerman, who had been developing a wired glove, to join him and founded VPL Research to pursue the glove idea.[3] Zimmerman had filed a United States patent application for an "optical flex sensor" on 29 September 1982, and it was granted as US Patent 4,542,291 on 17 September 1985 with VPL Research as the original assignee. The sensor was a flexible tube carrying light from a source at one end to a photodetector at the other, so that bending the tube changed the amount of light detected. The patent already described a body suit embodiment, and one of its claims covers a body suit with at least one flexible tube secured near a joint.[5]
The suit was described in the paper "From DataGlove to DataSuit" by Ann Lasko-Harvill, C. Blanchard, W. Smithers, Young Harvill and A. Coffman, published in the digest of papers of the IEEE Computer Society's COMPCON Spring 88 conference (San Francisco, 29 February to 3 March 1988). The abstract describes a system that "captures, records, and renders" the movement of the human body. Sensors on the DataSuit, "a garment covering the body from neck to ankles", register the position and orientation of the body's joints, and an absolute positioning system tracks the wearer in six degrees of freedom within the room.[2] The Augmented World Expo Hall of Fame describes Lasko-Harvill as VPL's chief designer of data suits and credits her with designing the DataSuit and with leading development of the RB2 whole-body VR suit.[6]
The suit was still a work in progress in 1989. Introducing an interview with Lanier in the fall 1989 issue of Whole Earth Review, Kevin Kelly wrote that VPL was "developing the concept of the glove into a whole bodysuit" and that "the clothing so far is not elegant", made bulky by cables running off the limbs and back. A photo caption in the same article explained that fiber-optic cables running through the suit and gloves produce signals when flexed.[7] A NASA Spinoff article published in 1990 called the DataSuit "a natural follow-on to the DataGlove" and listed it as a VPL Research trademark.[3]
Design
A detailed description of the suit appears in a 1990 paper by Chuck Blanchard, Ann Lasko-Harvill and Lou Ellyn Jones, printed in the Ars Electronica 1990 catalog. It calls the DataSuit "a one-piece, full-body stretch garment with sensors for measuring arm, leg and trunk movements". The suit used a variety of sensors to measure joint bend and the rotation of the hips and shoulders. Polhemus magnetic sensors on the head, back and pelvis measured rotation or bending of the spine and the absolute position of the figure in space, for example whether the wearer had moved forward or backward or crouched down.[1]
| Component | Function |
|---|---|
| Full-body stretch garment | One-piece suit carrying sensors for arm, leg and trunk movement[1] |
| Joint sensors | Measure joint bend and hip and shoulder rotation[1] |
| Polhemus sensors on the head, back and pelvis | Measure rotation or bending of the spine and the wearer's absolute position[1] |
| Left and right DataGloves | Built into the suit to capture the hands[1] |
| Sandals with heel pressure sensors | Measure contact with the floor[1] |
NASA's 1990 Spinoff article states that the suit reported "the motions, bends, gestures and spatial orientation of the wearer" to the computer, and that Polhemus Inc. of Colchester, Vermont, supplied the absolute position sensors for both the DataGlove and the DataSuit.[3] The Encyclopedia of Virtual Environments, compiled by students in Ben Shneiderman's virtual reality and telepresence course at the University of Maryland in fall 1993, gave a fuller sensor count: it described the suit as using the DataGlove's fiber-optic flex sensing to track the arms, legs, feet and torso with up to fifty sensors on the wearer's joints and four Polhemus trackers.[4]
Use with RB2
VPL first presented its RB2 system on 7 June 1989. RB2 coupled input and display devices ("DataGloves, Eyephones, trackers, even DataSuits") to a design and control workstation and to rendering computers. On the Apple Macintosh, VPL's Body Electric software collected data from DataSuit, DataGlove and EyePhone sensors and other sources, and broadcast updates to the virtual world over Ethernet.[1]
Kelly's 1989 account describes Lanier preparing an RB2 demonstration for the Pacific Bell telephone company in which two people wore body suits with DataGloves, goggles and earphones and saw each other as computer-generated figures. Another caption in the article describes an RB2 visitor wearing a body suit with only her head and right hand activated.[7]
Lanier described the suit as optional. In an interview in the January 1991 issue of Omni, quoted by Matt Novak on Paleofuture, he said: "We also make a full-body suit, a DataSuit, but you can just have a flying head, which isn't really so bad." He added that the hands and head "are the business ends of the body", so goggles and gloves covered most of what a user wanted to do in a virtual world.[8]
Applications
The 1988 COMPCON paper listed the DataSuit's uses as an input device for teleoperation, telepresence, human performance modeling and animation.[2] NASA's 1990 Spinoff article reported that the suit had "already found a commercial application, an unusual one": film actors wore it "to give fluid, realistic motion to animated characters in computer-generated movie special effects".[3] A 2025 retrospective by Josef Erl for heise online likewise describes the "Data Suit" as primarily used for motion capture in film production.[9]
Availability and status
VPL listed the DataSuit among its products. The 1990 Ars Electronica paper states that "VPL also makes a DataSuit", and VPL's entry in the SIGGRAPH 1991 exhibitor listing names the DataSuit among the company's other products, next to the DataGlove and AudioSphere.[1][10] The 1993 Encyclopedia of Virtual Environments, however, wrote that the suit was "not yet commercially available due to the complex calibration process the suit must go through for each new user".[4]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 Chuck Blanchard, Ann Lasko-Harvill, Lou Ellyn Jones (1990). "What's New in Reality Built for Two". Ars Electronica 1990 festival catalog. Ars Electronica. https://webarchive.ars.electronica.art/en/archives/festival_archive/festival_catalogs/festival_artikel.asp%3FiProjectID=8974.html. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 A. Lasko-Harvill, C. Blanchard, W. Smithers, Y. Harvill, A. Coffman (1988). "From DataGlove to DataSuit". Digest of Papers, COMPCON Spring 88: Thirty-Third IEEE Computer Society International Conference, pp. 536-538. IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/CMPCON.1988.4925. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 "A New Continent of Ideas". NASA Spinoff 1990, pp. 90-91. NASA. 1990. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20020086961/downloads/20020086961.pdf. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Jerry Smith (1993). "Other Input Devices". The Encyclopedia of Virtual Environments (University of Maryland CMSC 828S course, fall 1993), hosted by the Human Interface Technology Laboratory. University of Washington. https://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/knowledge_base/virtual-worlds/EVE/I.D.1.e.OtherDevices.html. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
- ↑ Thomas G. Zimmerman (1985-09-17). "US4542291A - Optical flex sensor". Google Patents. VPL Research (original assignee). https://patents.google.com/patent/US4542291A/en. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
- ↑ "Ann Lasko-Harvill - Chief Designer of Data Suits at VPL Research". AWE Hall of Fame. AWE XR. https://www.awexr.com/hall-of-fame/24-ann-lasko-harvill. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Adam Heilbrun, Barbara Stacks; introduction by Kevin Kelly (1989). "An Interview with Jaron Lanier". Whole Earth Review, Fall 1989. https://www.jaronlanier.com/jaron%20whole%20earth%20review.pdf. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
- ↑ Matt Novak (2011-10-28). "Jaron Lanier's Virtual Reality Future". Paleofuture. https://paleofuture.com/blog/2011/10/28/jaron-laniers-virtual-reality-future. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
- ↑ Josef Erl (2025-06-17). "How the video game crash in the 1980s gave rise to the first VR glasses". heise online. https://www.heise.de/en/background/How-the-video-game-crash-in-the-1980s-gave-rise-to-the-first-VR-glasses-10448676.html. Retrieved 2026-10-11.
- ↑ "VPL Research Inc.". ACM SIGGRAPH History Archives. ACM SIGGRAPH. https://history.siggraph.org/?p=184913. Retrieved 2026-10-11.