From: broehl@sunee.uwaterloo.ca (Bernie Roehl) Subject: INFO: Sega HMD Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1993 22:09:40 GMT Message-ID: Organization: University of Waterloo Here's some more info on the Sega "Virtua" HMD. What we've heard so far is true; it hooks up to the Sega Genesis CD system, and it will be available for $200 (US) starting in December of this year. The Sega Marketing person was at the VRS conference, and she confirms that it's a full-color system, with the same display resolution as the Sega Genesis itself. She didn't say whether it was monoscopic or stereoscopic. They do head-tracking, using a "proprietary" system. It only provides two degrees of freedom; you can turn your head left-right and tilt it up-down. It's not mechanical (you're not attached to anything) and I doubt it could be magnetic (since neither Polhemus nor Ascension seems to know anything about it, and it would be hard to do any kind of magnetic system without violating one of their patents). It's also probably not ultrasonic. People who have used it say there was a box of some sort sitting behind them, while they sat in a chair. My guess it's an optical system, probably using an infrared LED on the back of the helmet and either a lateral effect photodiode or something similar in the box. After all, Sega has used (and continues to use) IR technology. -- Bernie Roehl University of Waterloo Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering Mail: broehl@sunee.UWaterloo.ca Voice: (519) 885-1211 x 2607 [work]