In this Bingecast episode, Dr. Thomas Furness – the grandfather of virtual reality – tells the story of how he became involved in the development of virtual reality. Listen in as he shares gripping stories about his time in the Air Force, and how virtual reality has been used in medicine, to help mitigate pain, and in making new and unexpected discoveries.

Show Notes

• 00:00:36 | Introducing Dr. Thomas Furness, Professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering at the University of Washington
• 00:03:08 | The story of virtual reality in the Air Force
• 00:06:28 | Aiming airplanes
• 00:11:07 | Virtual image displays
• 00:17:10 | Visually Coupled Airborne System Simulator (VCASS)
• 00:19:55 | Tactile displays
• 00:22:49 | Testing the displays with real pilots
• 00:30:49 | Positive publicity for the military
• 00:34:34 | Applications for virtual reality outside of the military
• 00:38:35 | Getting virtual reality out into the world
• 00:41:13 | Starting a lab at the University of Washington
• 00:46:07 | HIT Labs collaboration
• 00:52:16 | Personal eyewear display
• 00:54:48 | Mitigating pain through virtual reality distraction
• 01:02:47 | Training in virtual reality
• 01:05:27 | Virtual retinal displays
• 01:08:37 | What happened to Google Glass?
• 01:11:18 | Applications for ophthalmology
• 01:15:59 | The RATLAB
• 01:21:13 | Exercising in virtual reality
• 01:24:39 | Prizes for achievements in technology
• 01:26:37 | What can you learn about yourself from your pulse?
• 01:34:04 | Measuring the light coming out of the eyes
• 01:36:59 | Virtual cockpits for rescue helicopters
• 01:38:28 | Setting up a HIT Lab in New Zealand
• 01:43:15 | Virtual reality vs. augmented reality
• 01:47:14 | ARToolKit / ARToolworks
• 01:54:37 | World Vision System and the range of peripheral vision
• 02:04:00 | The future of virtual reality
• 02:07:00 | The Virtual World Society

Additional Resources

• Thomas Furness at the University of Washington
• Virtual World Society (founded by Thomas Furness)
• VRAIS
• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
• Infinity collimation at Wikipedia
• Visually Coupled Airborne System Simulator (VCASS)
• Ray Bowen at Wikipedia
• Human Interface Technology (HIT) Lab
• RATLAB
• XPRIZE
• ARToolworks
• SIGGRAPH
• ARToolKit
• QuiverVision