Fantasies of Perfect Data
The MIT Press eBooks · 2024
FANTASIES OF PERFECT DATAAt its most basic, a VR headset is a computer display with a head-position sensor so that the display can change based on movements of the head.This was the capability that Ivan Sutherland first demonstrated in 1968, with his Sword of Damocles tracking system, named as such because the intimidating mechanical system was suspended above the user (see chapter 5, figures 5.1 and 5.2). 1 Sutherland also described in his 1968 paper an "ultrasonic head position sensor," an approach that instead used ultrasonic transmitters.These transmitters broadcasted at different frequencies, and receivers in a square array mounted on the ceiling tracked their position.However, because the wavelength of the transmitters was around a third of an inch, this method of tracking was never accurate enough to function adequately.The experience of Sutherland's display was more similar to augmented reality devices like Microsoft's Holo-Lens because the display was actually see-through: no screen at the time offered sufficient resolution to be held close to the eyes.With the basic principles in place, but none of the sufficient technology to use it in any practical applications, the fantasy of VR had to wait for the technology to catch up.For a little while in the 1980s, it seemed as if the technology had caught up to the fantasy.The US Air Force (grappling with the challenge of training pilots to fly increasingly complicated machines) and NASA (which had the challenge of putting humans in even more dangerous places) drove research into VR.Michael McGreevy-a researcher at NASA's Ames Research Center-launched a new VR research project in 1985, afternoticing that the Citizen watch company's LCD displays in mini consumer televisions were small enough to fit into a head-mounted display,