What do The Sword of Damocles, Morton Heilig’s Sensorama, and the 18th century apparatus La Nature à Coup d’Œil all have in common?
They were in fact all early attempts at simulating an artificial reality. The concept itself, however, is by no means new. One of the earliest inventions in this field was patented by artist Robert Barker in 1787.
La Nature à Coup d’Œil, later termed ‘The Panorama’, comprised a large landscape painting displayed inside a circular building. Observers would stand in an enclosure in the centre of the building and view the painting as if it were a real panorama as seen from a high viewpoint. Despite sounding very elementary, it was reported that many visitors felt disoriented and sick as a result of the experience.
Jumping forward to 1962, we come to Morton L. Heilig’s patent for his Sensorama Simulator. This contraption, operating a bit more like present-day VR devices, includes means of providing 3D visuals, vibrations, sound effects, and even odours.
The simulator, which ran short films such as “Belly Dancer” and “I’m a Coca-Cola Bottle”, was unable to secure funding and ultimately ended in failure.
Just six years later, computer scientist Ivan Sutherland developed an early example of a VR Head-Mounted Display (HMD): The Sword of Damocles. This device used head-tracking technology to display a virtual overlay that changed perspective based on the user’s head position.
Extended reality experiences have clearly been of interest to innovators for many years, but how far have we really come from these early endeavours? And where might this technology take us?
While the broad concepts have changed very little, current technology now allows users to enter completely artificial worlds in ways that had not previously been possible and development in this area is rife.
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This refined fusion between precision tracking and high-resolution displays is allowing VR/AR technology to regain traction in the gaming industry. Besides the mainstream products such as Oculus Rift, one interesting example of this is Magic Leap’s recently released cutting-edge AR goggles: Magic Leap One.
These goggles are able to display virtual objects in different focal planes relative to real-world objects. This means that if a virtual ball is sitting on your real-world coffee table and you virtually knock it off, you will see it virtually fall off the real-world table and virtually roll along the real-world floor.
But the ability to realistically simulate an artificial environment stretches well beyond the gaming and entertainment industry. Increasingly VR/AR devices are being used in other industries (such as education, manufacturing and healthcare) as genuine tools for improving experiences and efficiency and many believe this is where the future of these technologies lie.
While it is clear that the present day XR innovations are worlds apart from the early attempts there is one thing that all of these inventions certainly have in common: Intellectual Property.
From a big painting in a round building (Patent for displaying Views of Nature, Robert Barker) to corneal sphere tracking for generating an eye model (EP3329316A1, Oculus VR LLC), it is clear that all of these individuals and companies understood the importance of protecting investment and market share.
A recent study by IPlytics found that VR/AR patent applications have increased nearly six fold between 2010 and 2018. Whether it is a registered design for the shape of a headset or a patent to protect the technology inside it, the value of intellectual property protection has never been higher in this field and we expect to see many more interesting inventions coming our way in the years to come.
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