About: Imagine orbiting the Earth in an untethered spacewalk. LEEP’s Virtual Reality Spacewalk, also known as The Virtual Orbiter, convincingly delivers this sensation to trade show attendees. At the heart of the Virtual Orbiter lies the Cyberface4, a higher resolution iteration of the tried and true Cyberface3 head-guided interface system.
Originally intended as the first in a series of Virtual Adventures, The Virtual Orbiter is a standup, standalone, true Virtual Reality experience designed expressly as a trade show attraction. Unlike most VR offerings available for trade shows, the display is supported, seemingly weightless, on an arm that allows the user to look freely in every direction in the virtual world. This arrangement eliminates ergonomic and cleanliness problems that generally tend to be costly and troublesome. The Virtual Orbiter is an view of Earth that spans from 20,000 miles out, down to 200 miles, and back, allowing the space walker to look around at the blue and white spaceship Earth wheeling majestically below all during the flight. It doesnt take long, it requires no practice and the booth visitors are happy to be there.
Cyberface 4 Specs and Info…
Device: Cyberface 4 (Virtual Orbiter)
Manufacturer: LEEP
Announced Date: Unknown
Release Date: November 1995
Launch Price: Unknown
Device Type: VR Headset (PC Powered)
Display: X2 LCD panels at 720 X 240 (Per Eye)
Diagonal Field of View(FOV): 90°
Refresh Rate: 60 Hz
Weight: Unknown
CPU: N/A
GPU: N/A
Battery: N/A
Tracking: 3 DoF Non-positional (Gyroscope Based)
Controllers: N/A
Our Thoughts: The original Cyberface units by LEEP were made to have various purposes, but the LEEP Cyberface 4 was an untethered virtual reality spacewalk onboard a spacecraft orbiting the earth. While it could have had several uses later on in its life the virtual orbiter got its name for a very good reason. Looking back all us VR fans owe so much to the talents of the LEEP design team. Without them, virtual reality is just something in a comic book.
We don’t want to end the Cyberface series of headsets on a downer. This machine was just the start of a company vision that went far beyond what many others had even begun to imagine. They didn’t just want to make a VR headset that did space walks, it was originally intended as the first in a very long series of virtual adventures about anything the environment designers could have come up with. It just shows how much they all loved this technology and wanted it to be accepted by the public.
Sources used…
- http://www.leepvr.com/orbiter.php