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Virtual Research

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Virtual Research Systems, Inc.
Information
Industry Virtual reality, head-mounted displays
Founded 1991
Founder Bruce Bassett
Headquarters Santa Clara, California (1990s); Aptos, California (2000s)
Notable Personnel Bruce Bassett (president)
Products Flight Helmet, Eyegen 3, VR4, VR4000, FS5, FS5i, V6, V8, V8 Binoculars, WindowVR, VR1280


Virtual Research Systems, Inc. is an American company that made VR headsets, which it called head-mounted displays (HMDs), for professional virtual reality, research laboratories, and simulation and training customers. It was later based in Aptos, California.[1] Bruce Bassett founded the company in 1991, and its first product, the Flight Helmet, was introduced at SIGGRAPH 91 in July of that year.[2]

Over the 1990s the company sold a series of HMDs built around LCD panels and miniature CRTs, including the Flight Helmet, Eyegen 3, VR4, FS5, V6 and V8. Research groups used these headsets in published virtual reality experiments, among them Mel Slater's studies of presence in the 1990s.[3] In the late 1990s and 2000s the company also offered a hand-held display called WindowVR, ruggedized versions of consumer head-mounted displays, and the SXGA-resolution VR1280.[4][5]

Reviewed 27 September 2026. Company history, product dates and specifications re-checked against archived virtualresearch.com pages (1997-2024), the SIGGRAPH exhibitor archive, the Deutsches Museum record, V-Rtifacts, the Slater presence paper collection and the Duchowski VRST 2001 paper. About review dates.

History

Founding and the Flight Helmet

According to the company's own profile, Virtual Research was founded in 1991 by Bruce Bassett and introduced the Flight Helmet at SIGGRAPH 91 in July 1991. The profile states that the only other HMD then available to the small virtual reality market was the VPL EyePhone from VPL Research, and that the Flight Helmet had a durable front shell and a 100 degree field of view. It was discontinued in 1993.[2]

The Deutsches Museum in Munich, which holds a Flight Helmet in its collection, describes it as having a 100 degree diagonal field of view, a resolution of 240x120 pixels, 6.9 cm LCD screens and wide-angle optics from LEEP Systems, with a weight of 1.67 kg and a price of $6,000.[6] The VR history site V-Rtifacts notes that by 1991 the Flight Helmet was the third HMD to use LEEP's Large Expanse Extra Perspective optics, after VPL's custom NASA headset and the EyePhone, and that like other LEEP-based helmets it used color LCDs taken from consumer handheld televisions.[7]

CRT and LCD headsets (1993-1997)

In spring 1993 Virtual Research introduced the Eyegen 3, which used miniature CRTs to give higher resolution at a mid-range price. The company described it as a lightweight design with precise adjustments aimed at VR laboratories. In 1994 the VR4 followed, using newer LCD panels; the company said it kept the resolution of the Eyegen 3 while improving the optics and ergonomics, and gave it a 60 degree field of view.[2] The Deutsches Museum notes that the VR4's LCDs had twice the resolution of the Flight Helmet's at half the size.[6]

Demand from the location-based entertainment market led to the VR4000, a ruggedized VR4 customized for each attraction. At SIGGRAPH 95 the company unveiled the FS5, which it called its first "high end" product. The FS5 used CRTs with 800-line horizontal resolution and an optical system with a 55 degree diagonal field of view at 100% overlap or 76 degrees at 50% overlap. The company described the later FS5i as adding an "easy to use" interface to the FS5.[2]

On 2 January 1997 the company, then based in Santa Clara, California, announced the V6, a mid-range HMD with 640 x 480 active matrix LCDs and a direct VGA input. The press release said the V6 would be priced below the VR4, whose price would be cut to match; the VR4 stayed on sale for customers who needed NTSC video inputs such as S-video and RS-170 RGB. Bassett was quoted in the release as the company's president.[8] A 1998 version of the company profile states that the V6 and V8 were both released in 1997, with the V6 replacing the VR4 and the V8 replacing the CRT-based FS5.[9] A teardown on V-Rtifacts reports that the V6 used displays and driving electronics from Epson, moved most of its electronics into the control box, and shared its control box, power supply and mechanical parts with the V8.[10]

Later products and status

By 1998 the company described itself as "the leading supplier of Head Mount Displays (HMD's) to the professional simulation and training markets". Its product page then listed the V8, V6, V8 Binoculars and a monocular display called Cyclops, alongside i-glasses personal display systems that it resold.[11] The company exhibited at SIGGRAPH in 1998, 1999 and 2000, listing an address on Walsh Avenue in Santa Clara. Its 1999 exhibitor description introduced WindowVR as "the latest advance in interactive 3D display technology".[12]

By September 2001 the company's website gave an address in Aptos, California, and its product list marked the V8 and V8 Binoculars as discontinued while offering the V6, WindowVR, the Cy-Visor personal display (at an introductory price of $999, MSRP $1,200) and a ruggedized Cy-Visor.[4][13] The VR1280 product page, first archived in March 2006, describes a headset with dual SXGA (1280 x 1024) reflective FLCOS displays and a 60 degree diagonal field of view.[5] The website's home page kept the same Aptos address through at least November 2014;[14] by February 2024 the virtualresearch.com domain showed only an "under construction" placeholder page.[15]

Products

The table lists the company's own HMD and display products with the specifications the company published for them. Dates are the introduction dates given by the company where stated.

Product Introduced Display Field of view Notes
Virtual Research Flight Helmet July 1991 Color LCDs with LEEP optics 100 degrees First product; discontinued 1993[2]
Eyegen 3 Spring 1993 Miniature CRTs Not stated Aimed at VR laboratories[2]
VR4 1994 Dual 1.3 inch active matrix LCDs, 742 x 230 (170,660 color elements) per eye 60 degrees diagonal at 100% overlap; 67 degrees at 85% overlap Weight 33 oz (0.935 kg); S-VHS and RS-170A inputs[16][17]
VR4000 By 1997 Dual 1.3 inch active matrix LCDs, 742 x 230 per eye 60 degrees diagonal at 100% overlap Ruggedized VR4 for location-based entertainment; weight 31 oz (0.9 kg)[16][18]
FS5 SIGGRAPH 95 Dual 1 inch black and white CRTs with color shutters, 800-line horizontal resolution 55 degrees diagonal at 100% overlap; 76 degrees at 50% overlap Weight 38 oz (1.07 kg); field sequential input[16][19]
FS5i By 1997 Same as FS5 Same as FS5 FS5 with a scan converter in a 19 inch rack mount; accepts 60 Hz VGA, RS-170 RGB or 180 Hz field sequential input[16][20]
V6 January 1997 Dual 1.3 inch active matrix LCDs, 640 x 480 per eye 60 degrees diagonal Weight 29 oz (0.821 kg); VGA input; contrast ratio 200:1[16][21]
Virtual Research V8 1997 Dual 1.3 inch active matrix LCDs, (640x3) x 480 per eye 60 degrees diagonal Weight 34 oz (1.0 kg); VGA input; discontinued by 2001[22][4]
V8 Binoculars By 1998 Dual 1.3 inch active matrix LCDs, (640 x 3) x 480 60 or 30 degrees Hand-held display for reconnaissance simulation; discontinued by 2001[23]
Cyclops By 1998 Single 1.3 inch active matrix LCD, (640x3) x 480 60 or 30 degrees diagonal Monocular display for commercial, military and medical uses[24]
WindowVR 1999 15 inch XGA, 17 inch SXGA or 21 inch (1600 x 1200) flat panel Not applicable Hand-held tracked flat-panel display with 3DoF or 6DoF tracking options[12][25]
VR1280 By 2006 Dual SXGA (1280 x 1024) reflective FLCOS displays 60 degrees diagonal (100% overlap) Stereoscopic or mono; IPD adjustment 52-74 mm[5]

The company also sold modified versions of other manufacturers' displays. The Ruggedized Glasstron was based on the Sony Glasstron, and the Ruggedized i-Visor on the Daeyang i-Visor; in both cases Virtual Research added a double-ratchet headband, a mount for position trackers and closed-cup Sennheiser earphones.[26][27]

Use in research and training

Virtual Research headsets appear in the equipment lists of academic virtual reality studies. Mel Slater's presence experiments, carried out at Queen Mary College and from 1996 at University College London, used a Virtual Research Flight Helmet as the HMD of a DIVISION ProVision system with Polhemus trackers; the papers describe its displays as color LCDs with 360 x 240 resolution and a horizontal field of view of about 75 degrees. A later small-group meeting study in the same collection used a VR4.[3] At Clemson University, Andrew Duchowski and colleagues built a VR aircraft inspection training system around a Virtual Research V8 with a binocular eye tracker that, according to their paper at ACM VRST 2001, was built jointly by Virtual Research and ISCAN.[28]

The company's own customer applications page described the Breitling Fighter Challenge, a simulated dogfight competition among 128 fighter pilots from 20 nations that used 15 V6 HMDs, and a Washington State University design and manufacturing project (VEDAM) that used a VR4.[29]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Virtual Research Home Page". Virtual Research Systems (archived). http://web.archive.org/web/20031213015301if_/http://www.virtualresearch.com. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 "Company Profile". Virtual Research Systems (archived 1997-03-29). 1997. https://web.archive.org/web/19970329113316/http://www.virtualresearch.com:80/profile.htm. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Mel Slater (2013-02). "Being There Together: Experiments on Presence in Virtual Environments (1990s)". Mel Slater publications list. http://publicationslist.org/data/melslater/ref-233/beingthere%202013.pdf. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Products". Virtual Research Systems (archived 2001-09-26). https://web.archive.org/web/20010926183453/http://www.virtualresearch.com/products.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Virtual Research Systems: VR1280 Head Mount Display". Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20120110130211if_/http://www.virtualresearch.com/products/vr1280.htm. Retrieved 2024-05-21.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Virtual Research Flight Helmet". Google Arts & Culture (Deutsches Museum). https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/virtual-research-flight-helmet/1AGrF3Gb56sCHw. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  7. ↑ "Take Flight in the Virtual World". V-Rtifacts. https://vrtifacts.com/take-flight-in-the-virtual-world/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  8. ↑ "Virtual Research Unleashes More Power In V6". Virtual Research Systems (archived). 1997-01-02. https://web.archive.org/web/19970329121022/http://www.virtualresearch.com:80/press.htm. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  9. ↑ "Company Profile: Virtual Research Systems, Inc.". Virtual Research Systems (archived 1998-06-10). 1998. https://web.archive.org/web/19980610191600/http://virtualresearch.com:80/company.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  10. ↑ "Teardown - Virtual Research V6". V-Rtifacts. https://vrtifacts.com/teardown-virtual-research-v6/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  11. ↑ "Virtual Research Systems: Products". Virtual Research Systems (archived 1998-06-10). 1998. https://web.archive.org/web/19980610191544/http://virtualresearch.com:80/products.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Virtual Research Systems, Inc.". ACM SIGGRAPH History Archives. https://history.siggraph.org/exhibitor/virtual-research-systems-inc/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  13. ↑ "Virtual Research Home Page". Virtual Research Systems (archived 2001-09-26). https://web.archive.org/web/20010926183453/http://www.virtualresearch.com/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  14. ↑ "Virtual Research Home Page". Virtual Research Systems (archived 2014-11-21). https://web.archive.org/web/20141121174553/http://www.virtualresearch.com/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  15. ↑ "Web Page Under Construction". virtualresearch.com (archived 2024-02-22). https://web.archive.org/web/20240222172743/http://www.virtualresearch.com/. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 "Virtual Research Current Products". Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/19970415181905if_/http://www.virtualresearch.com/prods.htm. Retrieved 2024-05-21.
  17. ↑ "Virtual Research Systems VR4 Head Mount Display". Virtual Research Systems (archived 1997-03-29). https://web.archive.org/web/19970329115912/http://www.virtualresearch.com:80/vr4.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  18. ↑ "Virtual Research Systems VR4000 Head Mount Display". Virtual Research Systems (archived 1997-05-07). https://web.archive.org/web/19970507021952/http://www.virtualresearch.com:80/vr4000.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  19. ↑ "Virtual Research Systems FS5 Head Mount Display". Virtual Research Systems (archived 1997-03-29). https://web.archive.org/web/19970329120623/http://www.virtualresearch.com:80/fs5.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  20. ↑ "Virtual Research Systems FS5i Head Mount Display". Virtual Research Systems (archived 1997-03-29). https://web.archive.org/web/19970329120747/http://www.virtualresearch.com:80/fs5i.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  21. ↑ "Virtual Research Systems: V6 Head Mount Display". Virtual Research Systems (archived 1998-06-10). https://web.archive.org/web/19980610192407/http://virtualresearch.com:80/products/v6.htm. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  22. ↑ "Virtual Research Systems: V8 Head Mount Display". Virtual Research Systems (archived 1998-06-10). https://web.archive.org/web/19980610192109/http://virtualresearch.com:80/products/v8.htm. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  23. ↑ "Virtual Research Systems: V8 Binoculars". Virtual Research Systems (archived 1998-06-10). https://web.archive.org/web/19980610192444/http://virtualresearch.com:80/products/v8_bin.htm. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  24. ↑ "Virtual Research Systems: Cyclops". Virtual Research Systems (archived 1998-06-10). https://web.archive.org/web/19980610192517/http://virtualresearch.com:80/products/cyclops.htm. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  25. ↑ "Virtual Research Systems: Window VR". Virtual Research Systems (archived 1999-11-29). https://web.archive.org/web/19991129052451/http://www.virtualresearch.com:80/products/win_vr.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  26. ↑ "Virtual Research Systems: Ruggedized Glasstron". Virtual Research Systems (archived 2000-02-29). https://web.archive.org/web/20000229181205/http://www.virtualresearch.com:80/products/glasstron.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  27. ↑ "Virtual Research Systems: Ruggedized i-Visor". Virtual Research Systems (archived 2006-03-17). https://web.archive.org/web/20060317033111/http://www.virtualresearch.com/products/rugged-i-visor.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  28. ↑ Andrew T. Duchowski, Eric Medlin, Anand Gramopadhye, Brian Melloy, Santosh Nair (2001-11-15). "Binocular eye tracking in VR for visual inspection training". Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology (VRST 2001). https://doi.org/10.1145/505008.505010. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
  29. ↑ "Virtual Research Systems: Customer Applications Using Head Mount Displays". Virtual Research Systems (archived 1998-06-10). 1998. https://web.archive.org/web/19980610191510/http://virtualresearch.com:80/applications.html. Retrieved 2026-09-27.
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