Virtual Research V8
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| Virtual Research V8 | |
|---|---|
| Basic Info | |
| VR/AR | Virtual reality |
| Type | Head-mounted display |
| Developer | Virtual Research |
| Manufacturer | Virtual Research |
| Release Date | 1997 |
| Predecessor | FS5 (CRT-based high-end model) |
| Display | |
| Display | 2 x 1.3 inch diagonal active matrix LCD |
| Resolution | (640x3) x 480 per eye (921,600 color elements, equivalent to 307,200 triads) |
| Refresh Rate | 60 Hz (VGA input) |
| Image | |
| Field of View | 60 degrees diagonal (100% overlap) |
| Optics | |
| Optics | Multi-element glass, fully color corrected |
| Ocularity | Binocular (stereo or mono input) |
| IPD Range | 52-74 mm |
| Tracking | |
| Tracking | None built in; mounting plate for external position sensors |
| Audio | |
| Audio | Sennheiser HD25 headphones |
| Connectivity | |
| Connectivity | VGA (640 x 480, 60 Hz) input through an external control box (one input for mono, two for stereo) |
| Ports | Control box with two 15-pin HD VGA inputs (left/mono and right/stereo), VGA monitor output, 3.5 mm audio input, 50-pin SCSI connector for the HMD cable |
| Power | Universal-input desktop power supply (+5, +24, -12 V DC); 30 W |
| Device | |
| Dimensions | 17.5 x 8 x 6 in (43 x 20 x 15 cm) |
| Weight | 34 oz (1.0 kg) |
The Virtual Research V8 is a virtual reality head-mounted display (HMD) that Virtual Research Systems of Santa Clara, California, introduced in 1997 for the professional market.[1][2][3] It used two 1.3-inch active matrix LCD panels, which the company described as having "true VGA" resolution of (640x3) x 480 color elements per eye, behind glass optics with a 60-degree diagonal field of view.[3] The headset accepted standard 640 x 480, 60 Hz VGA signals through an external control box and had no head tracker of its own.[4]
Virtual Research positioned the V8 as the replacement for its CRT-based FS5, offering the same full-color VGA resolution with better color, brightness, weight and price.[2] Laboratories used it in published experiments around 1999-2005, including the University of North Carolina and University College London study that compared real walking, walking-in-place and flying for presence, an eye-tracked inspection training simulator at Clemson University, and distance perception studies.[5][6][7] By September 2001 the company listed the V8 as discontinued.[8]
History
Background
Virtual Research was founded in 1991 by Bruce Bassett. Its first product was the Flight Helmet, introduced at SIGGRAPH 91 in July 1991, followed by the Eyegen 3 with miniature CRTs in spring 1993 and the VR4, developed around newer LCD technology, in 1994. 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.[2]
Announcement and release
The "Future" page of the company's website, as archived on 29 March 1997, carried the heading "April 1997" and said that Virtual Research was announcing a new product, the V8.[9] The company's 1998 profile states that it released the V6 and V8 in 1997, "establishing a new standard of quality and price for the mid-range HMD". According to the profile, the V6 replaced the VR4, while the V8 replaced the CRT-based FS5 "with the same full color, VGA resolution, but offers superior color, brightness, weight and price performance".[2]
In June 1998 the V8 appeared first on the company's product page, under the tagline "True VGA Resolution", ahead of the V6, the hand-held V8 Binoculars and a flat panel display called Cyclops.[10] The Human Interface Technology Laboratory's visual displays FAQ listed Virtual Research Systems, then at 2326 Walsh Avenue in Santa Clara, with the V6 and V8 as its products.[1]
Price
Virtual Research did not publish a price on its V8 product page.[3] A comparison table of head-mounted displays sold before 1999, on the website of the INRIA Rhône-Alpes virtual reality platform in France, gave the V8's price as "80 KF (25% off for 4)".[11]
Discontinuation
Virtual Research's exhibitor description for SIGGRAPH 2000 still named "the V6 and V8 head-mounted displays" among its products, alongside the new hand-held WindowVR.[12] By September 2001 the company's product page marked both the V8 and the V8 Binoculars as "DISCONTINUED", while the V6, WindowVR and the Cy-Visor personal display remained on sale.[8]
Design and hardware
Displays and optics
Each eye had a 1.3-inch diagonal active matrix LCD. Virtual Research gave the per-eye resolution as (640x3) x 480, or 921,600 color elements, "equivalent to 307,200 triads", with a contrast ratio of 200:1.[3] The V8 user guide explains that LCD resolution figures often count individual red, green and blue elements, and that the number must be divided by three to give full-color triads comparable with CRT figures.[4] On that basis the V8 had three times as many color elements per eye as the V6, which the company specified at 640 x 480 color elements (102,400 triads).[13][3]
The optics were a multi-element glass design that the company called fully color corrected, with a 60-degree diagonal field of view at a standard 100% overlap.[3] The user guide notes that the glass optics are not prone to scratching and that rubber eyecups around the lenses help protect them, although lenses and eyeglasses could still scratch each other if they touched.[4]
The V8 had no focus adjustment. Its focal plane was set at 3 feet, and the guide advised users who wore glasses to keep them on; users with astigmatism had to wear their glasses.[4] Messing and Durgin, who used the headset in their distance perception experiments, gave its accommodative distance as 1 m.[7]
Video input and control box
All video, audio and power connections went through a separate control box, joined to the headset by a 13-foot (3.9 m) custom molded cable with a 50-pin SCSI connector.[3] The V8 was designed for a 640 x 480, 60 Hz non-interlaced VGA signal on 15-pin HD connectors. It did not accept NTSC, PAL or SECAM timing; such sources, including cameras, needed an external converter to VGA. The control box accepted separate horizontal and vertical sync, composite sync on green or composite sync on the horizontal sync line. Because the V8 did not digitize the analog VGA signal, it could display as many colors as the graphics card produced.[4]
The control box detected when only the left (mono) input was connected and fed the same image to both displays; connecting a second VGA source to the right-eye input switched it to stereo, and a red LED indicated stereo mode. Stereo therefore required two graphics channels with identical sync configurations. The front panel had overall brightness and contrast controls, and a monitor output let an external VGA monitor show the same image as the headset. Audio came in through a 3.5 mm stereo jack and passed directly to the headphones; a microphone was optional.[4][3] The guide warned against connecting or disconnecting the 50-pin SCSI connector while the control box was switched on.[4]
Computer compatibility
In 1998 Virtual Research listed the V8 as compatible with PCs, Intergraph systems and Silicon Graphics Onyx Reality Engine 2 (with or without the Multi-Channel Option), Onyx Infinite Reality, Indigo Impact, Octane, O2 and Indy systems.[14] The user guide explains how to connect each. PCs and Intergraph systems needed one standard VGA cable per graphics board, and two boards for stereo. The O2 had a single graphics output, so it could drive the V8 only in mono. The standard Indigo Impact and Octane did not output VGA at all; owners needed Silicon Graphics' Impact Channel Option or Octane Channel Option, an external scan converter, or a video option plus an NTSC-to-VGA converter, and only the channel options allowed stereo. For the Octane and Onyx 2, the guide refers to video format files that Silicon Graphics wrote for the V8 so that it could run in sync-on-green mode, available from Virtual Research's website.[4]
Fit, audio and mechanical design
The headset was put on with top and rear ratchet knobs and a spring-loaded forehead rest. Dual-function knobs at the front of the shell set the interpupillary distance when twisted (52-74 mm) and the eye relief when slid forward or back (10-30 mm), so the V8 could be worn over glasses. Sennheiser HD25 headphones pivoted above the headband during fitting and could be removed when audio was not needed.[4][3] The guide says the cable bundle was meant to hang behind the wearer's shoulder as a counterweight; draped in front, it left the V8 front-heavy.[4]
The V8 measured 17.5 x 8 x 6 inches (43 x 20 x 15 cm) and weighed 34 ounces (1.0 kg).[3] The VR history site V-Rtifacts notes that the V6 and V8 share the same control box, power supply and mechanical components, and that the V8 adds a small fan inside the helmet shell to cool the electronics and LCDs.[15]
The included desktop power supply had universal AC input and +5, +24 and -12 V DC outputs, with a maximum of 30 W.[4][3] According to the guide, the circuitry in the headset generated a high-voltage spike of more than 500 V AC at very low current to drive the LCD backlights, reachable only if the unit was taken apart.[4]
Position tracking
The V8 had no built-in tracker. A position sensor mounting plate behind the top ratchet had screw holes for Polhemus receivers (Fastrak, Isotrak and Insidetrak), the Flock of Birds from Ascension Technology and InterSense sensors. Virtual Research supplied a second mounting plate free of charge for the triangular mounting pattern of the Logitech ultrasonic tracker. For electromagnetic trackers, the guide recommended placing the transmitter above the user's head, because a clear path reduced noise that the V8 could introduce, and customers who bought a sensor from Virtual Research together with the headset could have it attached at assembly.[4]
Safety guidance
The user guide recommended using the V8 only while seated, to avoid tripping over cables or obstacles. It warned that an incorrect IPD setting would cause eyestrain and that some eyestrain was likely even with correct adjustment. It named the fixed focal plane, which conflicts with the variable depth cues in the imagery, as perhaps the most significant cause (see vergence-accommodation conflict), and said the company knew of no technology that corrected the conflict. For shared use it suggested alcohol wipes to clean the headset between users.[4] The guide states that the equipment complied with the limits for a Class A digital device under Part 15 of the FCC rules.[4]
Comparison with the V6
The V6 and V8 were sold side by side. Their published specifications differ mainly in display resolution, weight and overlap options.
| Specification | V6 | V8 |
|---|---|---|
| Display | 2 x 1.3 inch active matrix LCD[13] | 2 x 1.3 inch active matrix LCD[3] |
| Resolution per eye | 640 x 480 (307,200 color elements, equivalent to 102,400 triads)[13] | (640x3) x 480 (921,600 color elements, equivalent to 307,200 triads)[3] |
| Field of view | 60 degrees diagonal[13] | 60 degrees diagonal[3] |
| Overlap | Standard 100%, user adjustable 85%[13] | Standard 100%[3] |
| Contrast ratio | 200:1[13] | 200:1[3] |
| Video input | VGA (640 x 480, 60 Hz)[13] | VGA (640 x 480, 60 Hz)[3] |
| Weight | 29 oz (0.821 kg)[13] | 34 oz (1.0 kg)[3] |
| Power consumption | 30 W[13] | 30 W[3] |
Related products
The V8 Binoculars were a hand-held display for immersive reconnaissance simulation using the same type of 1.3-inch LCDs at (640 x 3) x 480 resolution. They had a 60-degree or optional 30-degree field of view, an IPD range of 51-75 mm and an image plane adjustable from 12 inches to infinity, and connected through a VGA control box with automatic mono or stereo detection.[16] They were discontinued along with the V8 by September 2001.[8]
Virtual Research and the eye tracking company ISCAN jointly built a binocular eye tracker fitted inside a V8. In the version used at Clemson University, miniature cameras below the HMD lenses looked up through a hole cut in the lens stem and imaged the eyes via a dichroic mirror behind the lenses, while infrared LEDs inside the helmet produced corneal reflections for an ISCAN RK-726PCI processor running on a separate PC. The researchers reported a typical sample rate of 60 Hz that fell to 30 Hz in binocular mode, and an accuracy of about 0.3 degrees over a 20-degree horizontal and vertical range.[6]
Use in research
The V8 appears in the equipment lists of several virtual reality studies.
Locomotion and presence
Martin Usoh, Kevin Arthur, Mary Whitton, Rui Bastos, Anthony Steed, Mel Slater and Fred Brooks used a V8 driven by a Silicon Graphics Onyx2 at 30 Hz stereo in a "visual cliff" experiment presented at SIGGRAPH '99. The headset and a joystick were tracked by UNC's optical ceiling tracker, and the system's overall latency was about 100 ms. With 33 naive subjects split into flyers, virtual walkers and real walkers (plus 11 experienced users), the authors concluded that the evidence suggested presence was higher for virtual walkers than for flyers, and higher for real walkers than for virtual walkers, although the differences between groups diminished when oculomotor discomfort was taken into account. Among the factors the authors listed for the compelling nature of the experience was "the excellent resolution and color saturation of the V8 HMD".[5]
Eye-tracked inspection training
At Clemson University, Andrew Duchowski and colleagues built a virtual aircraft cargo bay for visual inspection training around a V8 with the Virtual Research and ISCAN binocular eye tracker, an Ascension 6DoF Flock of Birds tracker and a Silicon Graphics Onyx2 InfiniteReality2. Their paper at the 2002 Eye Tracking Research and Applications symposium described methods for analysing recorded eye movements in three dimensions.[6]
Distance perception
Ross Messing and Frank Durgin used a V8 in two experiments published in ACM Transactions on Applied Perception. In the first, subjects viewed a real hallway through live video from a camera mounted on the HMD (with a measured latency of at least 433 ms), and distances measured by visually directed walking were still underestimated, although the underestimation was linear. In the second, using a V8 with a 3rdTech HiBall head tracker and two G4 computers rendering in stereo at 60 Hz, they found that artificially lowering the horizon in a virtual field produced expanded distance judgments.[7]
NASA Ames Research Center
In his 2018 Oxford doctoral thesis on the history of virtual reality in the United States, Tobias Bowman writes, citing an interview with Stephen Ellis, that NASA Ames used Virtual Research's Flight Helmet and its later V4, V6 and V8 headsets well into the 1990s.[17]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Visual Displays FAQ". Human Interface Technology Laboratory, University of Washington. https://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/knowledge_base/virtual-worlds/visual-faq.html. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "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 2026-10-15.
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 "Virtual Research Systems: V8 Head Mount Display". Virtual Research Systems (archived 1998-06-10). 1998. https://web.archive.org/web/19980610192109/http://virtualresearch.com:80/products/v8.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 "V8 User Guide". Virtual Research Systems (archived PDF). Virtual Research Systems, Inc.. 1998. https://web.archive.org/web/20010709033128/http://www.virtualresearch.com:80/Acrobat_files/V8MANUAL.PDF. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Martin Usoh, Kevin Arthur, Mary C. Whitton, Rui Bastos, Anthony Steed, Mel Slater, Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. (1999). "Walking > Walking-in-Place > Flying, in Virtual Environments". Proceedings of SIGGRAPH '99, pp. 359-364. doi:10.1145/311535.311589. https://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/spr01/cs598b/papers/usoh99.pdf. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Andrew T. Duchowski, Eric Medlin, Nathan Cournia, Anand Gramopadhye, Brian Melloy, Santosh Nair (2002). "3D Eye Movement Analysis for VR Visual Inspection Training". Proceedings of the 2002 Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications (ETRA '02). doi:10.1145/507072.507094. https://web.archive.org/web/20060101132629/http://andrewd.ces.clemson.edu:80/research/vislab/docs/etra02.pdf. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Ross Messing, Frank H. Durgin (2005-07). "Distance Perception and the Visual Horizon in Head-Mounted Displays". ACM Transactions on Applied Perception, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 234-250. doi:10.1145/1077399.1077403. https://www.cs.rochester.edu/u/rmessing/academic/undergrad/p1-messing.pdf. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 "Products". Virtual Research Systems (archived 2001-09-26). https://web.archive.org/web/20010926183453/http://www.virtualresearch.com/products.html. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ "Future". Virtual Research Systems (archived 1997-03-29). 1997. https://web.archive.org/web/19970329113717/http://www.virtualresearch.com:80/future.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ "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 2026-10-15.
- ↑ "Virtual Reality Platform: Head Mounted Displays (Comparatif de HMDs, avant 1999)". INRIA Rhône-Alpes (archived 2021-06-30). https://web.archive.org/web/20210630011614/http://www.inrialpes.fr/sed/people/boissieux/PRV/CATALOG/hmd.html. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ "Virtual Research Systems, Inc.". ACM SIGGRAPH History Archives. ACM SIGGRAPH. https://history.siggraph.org/exhibitor/virtual-research-systems-inc/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 13.6 13.7 13.8 "Virtual Research Systems: V6 Head Mount Display". Virtual Research Systems (archived 1998-06-10). 1998. https://web.archive.org/web/19980610192407/http://virtualresearch.com:80/products/v6.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ "Virtual Research Systems, Inc: V8 Technical Support". Virtual Research Systems (archived 1998-06-10). 1998. https://web.archive.org/web/19980610191730/http://virtualresearch.com:80/techV8.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ Tone (2010-11-07). "Teardown - Virtual Research V6". V-Rtifacts. https://vrtifacts.com/teardown-virtual-research-v6/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ "Virtual Research Systems: V8 Binoculars". Virtual Research Systems (archived 1998-06-10). 1998. https://web.archive.org/web/19980610192444/http://virtualresearch.com:80/products/v8_bin.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ Tobias Bowman (2018). "Fate amenable to change: a technical and social history of Virtual Reality in the United States of America, from 1965 to 2005". ORA (Oxford University Research Archive), doctoral thesis, pp. 177 and 258. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:621e4934-2a78-47f7-84f2-6541bc095bd3/files/m5c8a869648701a6b715d20f9f08c3e6e. Retrieved 2026-10-15.