I was accepted to the Medium Creator Fellowship program in July. This means I am obliged to write 4 Medium posts across three months for a moderate compensation. This drove me to begin something that I have had on the drawing board for a while: an idea of how to produce bite-sized insights into research around VR, AR, haptics, multisensory technologies, and related topics.
Let me introduce: The Reality Files
The Reality Files is a series where I read research papers that focus on immersive and multisensory technologies, such as Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Extended Reality (‘XR’), and Haptics. The aim is to produce a reading of each paper that contextualises them to what is happening today and the other research of their time. I intend to produce a chronological reading of at least 25 papers, from 1960s to the 2020s.
Originally I was planning to do this as a podcast but with the Medium opportunity decided to make them more into blog posts. Hence the ‘5 minute insights into research’ slogan. I will circulate some of the posts, or summaries of a recent bunch, via this newsletter.
From notes to self to new discoveries
The posts are, to an extent, notes to myself but I hope others find value in them. At the time of writing this there I have published seven posts.
Initially I did not have any kind of chronology in mind, but now the collection of posts is shaping out to follow one. The first four posts are on the early pioneers of VR and technological inventions with similar intentions, such as Morton Heilig’s Sensorama. The next few are from the 1970s, when lots of early research e.g. around 3D computer graphics was going on.
I thought I was aware of quite a bit of the history but I have already discovered a number of projects I have never heard of before, and some of them are truly eye-opening.
For example, did you know that in the mid-1970s there was a research project that attempted to create a 3D modelling tool with augmented reality display ?
The upcoming papers from the 1980s include authors such as Andrew Lippman, Tom Furness, and Myron Krueger. One can’t really escape the fact that the early bunch of researchers in this space were not very diverse but I try to be aware of that fact once I get closer to our time - I’m more than happy to be told about the research I have missed.
How old papers give perspective to today
The thing that has struck me in this process is something that comes across as quite obvious when you think of it, but at least for me, required starting this concentrated and systematic effort to really hit home: the arc of history with these technologies, and their incubation to something mature into market, is always longer than what we assume at the time when they are starting to emerge.
I argue that flexing one’s brain on the history of XR tech gives clarity when considering today’s buzzwords, such as the Metaverse, and how far we are from those visions to become reality. This is not meant to discourage grand visions, but give tools of thought to see the road towards them, and respect the challenge ahead.
Stay safe,
Aki