LeepVR

Are you the same people who did the original LEEP™ displays for NASA in the 1980s and 1990s?
Eric Howlett is indeed the man behind original LEEP™ design that was used in several NASA projects in the 1980s and 1990s. These projects initiated his shift in focus from stereo photography to Virtual Reality. In 1989, his company, Pop-Optix Labs, released the first commercially available head-mounted display, the Cyberface.

Are the two of you (Eric and Alex Howlett) working on this by yourselves?
Eric and Alex are heading up the LeepVR project. We also have a network of contributors who believe in Videowrap™ and are working to further it along. These contributors include parties with whom we have worked in the past.

What happened to LEEP Systems?
LEEP Systems was shut down in 1998. We decided that the market wasn't yet ready for a full-on VR push.

What went wrong with the original LEEP™ Optics? Why aren't they everywhere today?
While the stereoscopic LEEP™ cameras and viewers aren't household items as Eric Howlett had originally envisioned in 1980, the LEEP™ optics were by and large successful within VR circles. For years, LEEP™ was the de facto standard in VR head-mounted displays. The patent has since expired and lenses using the LEEP™ design are being manufactured to this day.

What is Videowrap™ and how does it work?

In late 1994, Eric Howlett invented a revolutionary new VR display method that provided the user an unbounded visual field. At that time, he and two others from LEEP Systems assembled a simple feasibility demonstrator that aptly displayed the power of the display method. In 1999, he named the technology "Videowrap™." We are now refurbishing that feasibility demo and have yet to show it publicly.

Where can I get technical information about Videowrap™?

While we can’t discuss the technical details of the hardware at this point, there are plenty of publicly-available technical specifications that HMD manufacturers should be using already, but aren't. These technologies include Orthospace and Radial (LEEP) projection of three-dimensional worlds. We aim to provide as much information as possible about these technologies, and if you have any questions, feel free to contact us.

We will also do our best to discuss the features and capabilities of Videowrap™ right here on this website without going into too much about how the hardware works. Please read through our Videowrap™ pages and feel free to contact us if you’d like any more information. Once we have made our first public disclosure, all of the information about Videowrap™ will be available right here on LeepVR.com.

Everyone in the VR industry would like to make an HMD like the CyberfaceX™. What allows you to deliver where others have failed?
A fully immersive interface is truly the dream of VR aficionados everywhere. That said, others have never even attempted what we're doing, let alone failed. The widest angle commercial HMD you can find probably isn't any wider than the old Cyberface2™ with roughly 120° of lateral visual field. The CyberfaceX™ provides a full 270°.

Will the CyberfaceX™ allow me to play games without a monitor?
Yes. The CyberfaceX™ is a complete visual interface replacement for games. The HMD has sufficient resolution whereby it is possible for gamers to navigate menu systems and computer desktop applications without ever removing the hardware.

The weight of a Head-Mounted Display usually strains my face. How do you solve this problem?

If you read through our product pages, you'll see that we've always factored in weight and comfort in our HMD designs. We're a little surprised that the inertia-reducing Featherweight™ Counterpoise System of the original Cyberface™ never caught on. The Cyberface3™'s weightless arm allowed for continuous wear and did see popularity within VR circles. The fact is that these two systems handled weight gracefully in the 1990s and since then, head-mounted displays have continued to weigh less and less. Rest assured that the user's comfort remains, as ever, one of our top priorities. Hardcore gamers need to be able to play for 12+ hours straight in this thing.

Will the CyberfaceX™ support force feedback?

No. We want to improve gameplay rather than make it more annoying. The CyberfaceX™ is a head-mounted display and we’re keeping it simple. Force Feedback disrupts gameplay and makes gaming more difficult for those who choose to use it. No serious gamers use Force Feedback. Being that one of the main target audiences for our product is serious professional multiplayer gamers, We have no desire to add a feature to our hardware that actually decreases the quality of gameplay. Customers may choose to use Force Feedback hardware in conjunction with our display if they so desire, but very few will.

Will the CyberfaceX™ have a microphone?
Yes. It will. Even today, a microphone is critical for communication in online multiplayer games. We do not expect gamers to wear a headset on top of the CyberfaceX™.

Will the CyberfaceX™ support motion tracking?

The CyberfaceX™ will support full rotational head tracking. This means that gamers will be able to turn their heads and look around inside the game world.

We will NOT support full motion tracking. The simple fact is that, for most games, it’s impossible to make good use of such a feature. What happens when a gamer is playing a flight simulator and he leans is head so far to the right that it should be sticking through the cockpit glass? What happens when one person plays a game in a small room and another person plays the same game in a large room? Does the person in the large room have an advantage because he has more walking space?

We can’t see how full motion tracking will make any existing or future games more fun. Even if it did, there always the danger of gamers physically hurting themselves if they blindly walk around a real physical space with their views blocked by the HMD. We could include full motion tracking, but we doubt that gamers would jump at the idea of paying extra for a feature not supported by any games. Gamers may use separate motion-tracking hardware in conjunction with the CyberfaceX™ if they so choose, but we doubt many of them will.

I’ve played (insert favorite 3D game here) using 3D glasses and I wasn’t very impressed. How will you do it better?

The important point to remember is that a stereoscopic (3D) display is only a small piece of the puzzle. The key to immersion is a wide field of view. Stereoscopic display is not much more than novelty without it. Without Videowrap™, we don't know of any way in which hardware manufacturers would be able to provide the full immersive effect. The most critical part of our immersive VR experience is the full field of human vision we provide. For more information about fields of view, read this page

When can I buy a CyberfaceX™?

It’s useless to ask such a question without specifying a price. Even if a price were specified, we probably still wouldn’t have an answer. We can say that if you paid us $1 billion right now, we could probably build one for you in a matter of weeks. As to when and if we get the price below $100, it depends on how many hard-working people we have and how much money we get. That largely depends on public enthusiasm toward the product. Of course there will be an in-between time when Videowrap is commercially viable, but still too expensive for the home consumer.

How much will the CyberfaceX™ cost?

It’s useless to discuss price without also discussing a time frame. One week from now, there will be no price because you won’t be able to by it. 1,000 years from now, people will probably be paying to have them taken away. Needless to say, when we first commercially release the Videowrap technology, devices using it will be more expensive. If it becomes popular and the CyberfaceX can be mass-produced, the price will come down. If CyberfaceX manages to find its way into the main stream, our goal is to get the price below $100. The design does not make it inherently expensive to build.

How much money would your company would need to get the CyberfaceX™ down to a price that would be affordable to the consumer and mass produced world-wide within a short period of time?
Again, how much money we need depends on how short a period of time we're talking about. If you’re seriously interested in talking money, please contact us.

You use the term Orthospace a lot. What exactly is Orthospace… in English?

Orthospace is when the angles, sizes, and shapes in the virtual world are undistorted. The angles in an Orthospace remain the same regardless of any rotation in the view point.

When you take a globe of the earth and project it onto a flat surface, the sizes and shapes of the continents can never really match what was represented on the globe. Simlarly, if you look around the real world, you see things from a certain perspective. It’s like looking around the inside of a sphere. Flattening that image onto a computer monitor or a television screen results in a similar distortion. Crank the FOV up in Quake to see this effect. The distortion is always there, and the higher the FOV, the worse it gets.

With a stereoscopic display, rendering a virtual world in a non-orthoscopic manner results in an object viewed by one eye displaying a different amount of distortion from the same object viewed by the other eye. For real-life examples of non-orthoscopy, try viewing an object through a pane of dimpled glass or looking at your reflection in a funhouse mirror. The mind’s difficulty in merging the two separate images is a disturbing effect that only gets worse when the non-orthoscopic FOV gets wider and/or the stereo overlap region increases.

We have figured out a way to render a three-dimensional virtual world in complete Orthospace. By using completely orthoscopic rendering, Videowrap™ avoids the side effects of non-orthoscopic distortion. With Videowrap™, the user's interface with the virtual world is essentially identical to his interface with the real world.

How can I help?

The most important thing for us is to get the word out. We are working so hard on this project that we don't have much time to spend on promotion. To help us out, tell your friends about Videowrap and talk about us in online gaming communities. Knowing is half the battle, and the gaming community needs to know about Videowrap™ and CyberfaceX™.

If you’re interested in working with LeepVR at a more formal level, please contact us.