From: jmelzer@aol.com (JMELZER)
Subject: Re: TECH: HMD
Date: 8 Oct 1996 01:47:12 -0400
Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364)


>So, what about highest resolution of HMD? Is any information about
>_pilot_training_HMD(`s)_ or B-2 pilot HMD?  I know about only VFX-1,
>i-O Glasses and one more (I forgot name, anything about
>"Max"). Resolution 320x200 or even 800x600 is not enough.  It`s just
>pixels, not VIRTUALITY...

Articles in VR News, CyberEdge Journal update the list annually. They
range from the relatively inexpensive VIO i-glasses (I think they are
selling for around $500 or so now) with 180K dots running NTSC video
all the way to very high end systems (>$150K) running 1280 x 1024
color, with lots of interesting devices in between. There are some
pretty good systems under $1000, though they seem to typically use low
end LCDs as image sources. For the really high end stuff, you need to
use CRTs or a multitude of high end LCDs, but then you pay $$ for
them. The military services are evaluating a number of high end
systems for pilot training.  The performance is excellent, although
the cost can be pretty high.

We built a system with 150 deg x 50 deg FOV, 4 arc minute resolution,
(using 6 VGA LCDs per eye) but that was a one-off prototype. Immersion
was *so complete* that a number of people got woozy (including
myself).

Depends on what you are willing to spend for the HMD system itself
(including the image generator to drive it).

Jim Melzer
Kaiser Electro-Optics
jmelzer@aol.com (JMELZER)