Meant to be Seen

"Called Replicating Reality, it uses two .8-inch 1280 x 1024 LCD panels and head tracking to place you in a 3D virtual world. [snip] Of course, it still looked like a game, but there's a pixel packed 2048 x 1536 panel in the works that the company claims can deliver visuals nigh-indistinguishable from the real world

A contender for the next big thing in consumer entertainment

Taunton, Mass, May 31, 2011 -- Forth Dimension Displays (FDD), a leading provider of display components for fighter jet and helicopter simulators, and subsidiary of Kopin® Corporation, will introduce Replicating Reality™. Replicating Reality is a new concept to create the ultimate experience by making the user feel fully immersed in a different world or hyper-reality. Initially aiming at the gaming industry, Replicating Reality will be showcased at the E3 Gaming Conference (http://www.e3expo.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) to be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center (June 7-9, Booth #2962) and at IVR Expo at the Tokyo International Exhibition Center (June 22-24, Booth #24-39).

When asked to describe Replicating Reality, Greg Truman, CEO of FDD commented, “Our vision is to deliver a display where the user will be unable to tell the difference from reality. The wide field of view, very high resolution microdisplays and head tracking all contribute to a feeling of total immersion in the virtual world. We can build systems where the field of view, the resolution and colors are exactly the same as you see in the real world.”

The website http://www.replicatingreality.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; has been created to promote the concept.

HMD
NVIS nVISOR SX60 (http://www.nvisinc.com/product.php?id=16" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) delivering a 60° FOV image per eye.

Christian Schildwaechter wrote:Since I have wanted a usable and affordable HMD for about two decades now (I still have some DIY-VR stuff from the early 90s lying around here), I just spend some time at the websites of kopin, forthdd and replicatingreality. Read all the press releases, all the twitter and blog entries on replicatingreality, watched all the videos on the site (the same ones as in their YouTube channel) and learned almost nothing.

Obviously I was looking for something like release date/price, but I doubt that this will be released in the near future. Everywhere they talk about "promoting the concept, demo, discussing possibilities etc.". None of the videos show a product, just some 3D applications, mostly games. This is not vaporware, they are actually trying to push this and have been working with game developers, and the product is technical feasible, but this seems to be a demonstration model to test ideas, not intended for sale.

The technical specs (if you can call the sparse information that http://replicatingreality.com/.." onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. ) show an NVIS nVISOR SX60, also shown on the last of the pictures in the engadget gallery, used with an Intersense InertiaCube2+ head tracker. The nVISOR is an SXGA HMD with 60° field of view per eye which goes for about $US24,000 at tekgear, the InertiaCube2+ goes for an additional $US2,600, so most certainly not a consumer product.

This runs down to Kopin/Forth Dimension Displays wanting to enter the gaming market, pitching the idea to game developers and using high-end VR equipment to demonstrate what they intend to do in the future. I assume they have a plan how to produce something technically similar for about 5% of the price (still $US1,200) to reach even the gamers with very deep pockets. And hopefully the timeline for this is "only a few years". But we're most definitely not talking about "now". Which explains why my hunt for a release date or price failed miserably.

cybereality wrote:This isn't vaporware. Kopin makes the majority of displays you find in all sorts of HMDs (like VR920, for example). I'm sure the tech is real. The question is whether any of this will make it to the consumer market for affordable prices. If they are at E3, then clearly they are interested in entering this space. If all they cared about was military/medical, then they wouldn't be at an entertainment conference. They probably wanted to put out a feeler and see if game developers were interested. If produced in bulk, I think they could reach mass-market prices on these types of high-fov HD HMDs. It remains to be seen if the market is (or will be) that big.

PalmerTech wrote:I have been following Replicating Reality for a while now, I was one of the first 5 people to "like" their Facebook page (Including their own employees!).

Right now, though, there is no product. They are just using the guts of an NVIS SX60 to demonstrate how much better things COULD be, if we would stop pushing all these terrible low FOV products. The FOV is 60 degrees on their demo unit, we will have to see if they actually get enough steam to develop their own product.

They have a sales office that is very nearby for me, I am going to try and arrange a visit.