NVIS

NVIS
Information
Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Virtual reality, Augmented reality, Display systems
Founded	2002
Headquarters	Reston, Virginia, United States
Products	Head-mounted displays, helmet-mounted displays, virtual binocular displays
Parent	Kopin Corporation
Website	https://www.kopin.com

NVIS (NVIS, Inc., stylized in product names as nVisor) is an American manufacturer of professional head-mounted displays and simulation display systems based in Reston, Virginia. The company designs high-resolution displays for immersive training, simulation, and research, letting users view and interact with simulated 3D environments rather than for the consumer market. Its products were widely used by military, industrial, and academic customers during the 2000s and early 2010s, a period when consumer Virtual Reality hardware was largely unavailable.

Since 2017 NVIS has been a subsidiary of Kopin Corporation, which acquired the company and now sells and supports the nVisor product line through its Training and Simulation business.

History

NVIS was established in the early 2000s in Reston, Virginia, and is listed in United States government award records as founded in 2002. The company received early funding through the United States Army's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, with awards recorded between 2003 and 2005 totaling roughly 915,000 US dollars across Phase I and Phase II contracts. Reported leadership over the company's history included Marc Foglia and Susan Hopkins as president and Minoo Bablani as vice president.

The company's first major product, the nVisor SX, reached the market around 2003. It offered full SXGA (1280x1024) resolution per eye, an unusually high resolution for a head-mounted display at the time, at a launch price of about 24,000 US dollars. Over the following decade NVIS expanded the line with wider field of view models, optical see-through versions, helmet-compatible displays, and hand-held virtual binoculars, selling chiefly into defense and research markets.

Acquisition by Kopin

On March 7, 2017, Kopin Corporation, a Massachusetts-based maker of microdisplays and wearable display technology, acquired NVIS, Inc. for 5.7 million US dollars. The deal consisted of a 3.7 million US dollar cash payment plus up to 2 million US dollars in additional consideration contingent on future operating performance milestones, with the selling shareholders required to remain employed with NVIS through March 2020. Kopin folded NVIS into its Training and Simulation division, and the company has stated that NVIS continues to operate with the same people and location while gaining access to Kopin's resources and optical technology.

Technology

NVIS head-mounted displays are built around high-resolution microdisplays paired with custom optics to deliver sharp imagery for professional use. The nVisor SX family used liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) microdisplays to achieve SXGA resolution per eye, while the later see-through nVisor ST50 adopted OLED panels.

The product range spanned both fully immersive Virtual Reality displays and optical see-through models for Augmented Reality. The nVisor ST series projected imagery onto transparent combiners so wearers could see computer-generated content overlaid on the real world, and the nVisor ST appears among notable early optical see-through head-mounted displays. NVIS also produced helmet-mounted variants such as the nVisor MH60, a stereoscopic 1280x1024 color display designed to fit Gentex flight helmets for aviation training.

Because of their high pixel density and build quality, NVIS displays were adopted as research instruments in academic VR studies, where they were compared against consumer headsets such as the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Their high price, in the tens of thousands of US dollars, kept them confined to professional and laboratory settings.

Products

NVIS organized its catalog around several display families: the immersive nVisor SX series, the see-through nVisor ST series, helmet-mounted displays, and hand-held virtual binoculars. Under Kopin, the lineup has continued with newer training products such as the Pathfinder, Scout, Ranger, Commander, and Monoscope.

Product	Approx. year	Type	Notable specs and notes
nVisor SX	2003	Immersive HMD	Full SXGA (1280x1024) per-eye resolution; LCOS microdisplays; launch price about 24,000 US dollars
NVIS nVisor SX60	2003	Immersive HMD	1280x1024 per eye, 60-degree diagonal field of view, LCOS; launch price about 24,000 US dollars; built for military, industrial, and research use
nVisor SX111	c. 2008	Immersive HMD	Same SXGA resolution as the SX60 with a wider 111-degree diagonal field of view (about 76 by 64 degrees per eye)
nVisor ST50	2011	Optical see-through Augmented Reality HMD	1280x1024 full color, 50-degree diagonal field of view, OLED panels, optical see-through or immersive modes, built-in stereo headphones; priced around 20,000 US dollars
nVisor MH60	2000s	Helmet-mounted display	Stereoscopic 1280x1024 24-bit color, 60-degree display designed to mount on Gentex flight helmets for aviation training
Scout / Ranger	Current (Kopin)	Hand-held virtual binoculars	Simulate real binoculars for training; Scout uses dual Full HD displays, Ranger uses dual SXGA displays with adjustable interpupillary distance
Pathfinder 40	Current (Kopin)	Wireless virtual binoculars	Dual 2K OLED displays, wireless operation, integrated 3-DoF tracking for simulation

Market position

NVIS occupied a niche at the high end of the professional display market, supplying immersive and see-through head-mounted displays for defense, industrial, and university customers well before mainstream VR headsets existed. Rather than competing on price with later consumer hardware, the company emphasized resolution, optics, and ruggedness suited to flight training, vehicle simulation, and laboratory research. Following the Kopin acquisition, NVIS technology has been positioned within Kopin's broader training and simulation portfolio, with the nVisor name retained for legacy head-mounted displays alongside newer simulated-optics products.