
SERIOUS SIMULATIONS DEBUTS PRODUCTS AT FIRST IITSEC SHOW



DECEMBER 1, 2015- ORLANDO STARTUP BREAKS THROUGH ON SIMULATOR LATENCY
An Orlando simulation company says it has developed a way to soften so-called “simulator sickness,” or the motion sickness some get during extended sessions in a simulator.
Serious Simulations CEO Christopher Chambers said it’s the difference between 17 milliseconds and 17 microseconds.
That tiny amount of time represents the lag between a person’s motion and the movement of an environment in a heads-up display. Chambers says the reason behind it is simple.
“It’s a matter of duplicating human movement and the ability for it to be natural,” he said. “Our ideal is 100 percent human motion with the interface.”
But the industry is not quite there, Chambers said, although new hardware developed by Serious has set the industry on its way.
Chambers, a U.S. Army veteran who established Serious Simulations in July of 2014, said his time in the military helped shape his ideas about virtual reality.
“From my own years as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army, I knew that virtual reality training had a real future,” he said. “However, it could work only if peripheral vision and realistic human movements could be used to properly reinforce skills needed for combat.”
With industries such as law enforcement, military and commercial industry and sports training all using virtual reality to an extent, Chambers hopes the application of the new technology can be just as large.
Chambers started Serious Simulations in Orlando after moving here from Texas, in an effort to be near the area’s thriving simulation community, which is hosting the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation & Education Conference this week.
“If you’re a company in military simulation, you have to be in Orlando,” he said. “It’s the world’s headquarters for simulation and, in particular, military simulation
November 16, 2015 -As featured on VIRTUAL REALITY REPORTER- https://virtualrealityreporter.com/serious-simulations-launches-zero-frame-latency-wireless-vr-processor-professional-grade-simulation-provider/
Serious Simulations LLC is an Orlando based VR company is a provider of human motion based, mixed and virtual reality training systems. Serious Simulations has its own custom built wireless head and helmet mounted displays (HMDs). The HMDs are available separately and also as components of Serious Simulations’ professional grade VR simulation and training systems for military, police, emergency responders and other trainees for complex or dangerous tasks.
The company designs training systems using custom made hardware and software components for specific skill training needs, combined with motion tracking systems, wireless communications devices, display technologies and commercial game engines. The company is a partner in the Open Source Virtual Reality (OSVR) network.
Serious Simulations is launching a unique product that drastically improves wireless Virtual Reality display performance for high resolution screens. Through its patent pending two-step process, the company manipulates simulation/game video streams in the GPU by conducting pre-wireless transmission image processing.
By industry standard, the wireless transmissions are sent in landscape mode only, so upon reception by the HMD’s receiver, the Serious Simulations specially designed “reformatter” device re-organizes the pixels on-the-fly for delivery directly to the display screens. The process works for all high resolution displays such as the LCD, LED, OLED, and AMOLED screens popular in cellular phones and tablets. The speed of the Serious Simulations device is such that it takes less than 20 micro-seconds to deliver the first pixel of the wireless image from the GPU to the screen, and actually gains speed during the process.
To put the speed concept in layman’s terms, even if video could be delivered as fast as a bolt of lightning, Serious Simulations images are delivered 486 times faster. Such speeds enable reduction of more than 25 percent of a wireless virtual reality system’s total pipeline latency, and typically eliminates at least 17 milliseconds for a 1920 x 1080 video resolution. The process also totally negates the need for frame rotation software, which is 1000 times slower than this new process, Chambers explained.
“While designing our wireless Head/Helmet Mounted Displays (HMDs) using high resolution small format cell phone/tablet displays, we found it necessary to innovate a new approach to overcome the significant processing delays that existed between wireless transmitters that are natively landscape devices, and cell phone displays that are natively portrait devices,” said Christopher Chambers, Co-Founder and CEO of Serious Simulations.
“This method is so fast it is literally a zero-frame latency procedure, and is essentially a zero-time latency procedure, Chambers said. “Eliminating big chunks of latency greatly improves the VR experience, enhances the suspension of disbelief for better training or entertainment, and greatly reduces the chances of trainee or player discomfort. Our goal is to advance the notion that high resolution wireless VR displays can and should be as efficient as wired VR displays. It really is time to untether the VR user community,” he said.
“SEA VR provides us a perfect launch pad for Serious Simulations’ newest VR device. The conference is well attended by VR thought leaders, industry members, and enthusiasts. The VR community can immediately benefit from our technology since we are ready to book orders for our reformatting device, and license its technology,” said Damon Curry, vice president of technology at Serious Simulations.
Serious Simulations designs virtual reality hardware and software including the world’s only wireless Peripheral Vision Immersive Device (PVID – a dual screen wireless HMD that enables true human peripheral vision in a virtual reality experience). Now, their VR processor device makes the PVID and their other HMDs the fastest wireless displays in the world as well.
Orlando, Fla. (Oct. 29, 2015) — Serious Simulations LLC, has developed a groundbreaking new technology to help process visual images more than a thousand times faster than the human brain.
Christopher Chambers, co-founder and chief executive officer of Serious Simulations, said the new Serious Simulations Zero-Frame Latency Wireless VR Processor drastically improves wireless virtual reality (VR) display for high resolution screens.
In a training simulator, where first responders, soldiers and offshore oil well technicians must perfect critical skills, processing speed can mean future disasters avoided, lives saved and Americans kept safe.
Chambers called his company’s new processor a “reformatter” device that re-organizes VR images pixel-by-pixel “on the fly,” using pre-wireless transmission image processing.
“It takes less than 20 micro-seconds to deliver the first pixel of the wireless image to the screen, and the process accelerates,” Chambers explained.
According to cognitive scientists at MIT, the fastest human brain can process a visual image in 13 milliseconds. Serious Simulations is about 1,500 times faster.
Wireless transmitters stream images in landscape format—wider than tall. Most high-definition wireless displays in use today, including cell phones and tablets, typically render images in portrait format.
For a picture of a loved one, that doesn’t matter much. But a few millionths of a second can make the difference between the virtual reality you want a jet pilot to feel in a training environment and the awkward “suspension of disbelief” standard that was par for the simulator industry a decade ago.
Chambers said the new Serious Simulations Zero-Frame Latency Wireless VR Processor is so fast it can reduce a wireless VR system’s total pipeline latency by more than 25 percent.
For a single image in 1920 x 1080 resolution, Serious cuts about 17 milliseconds from the screen display time. That’s faster than the human brain.
And stacked up against the industry standard, the new Serious Simulations Zero-Frame Latency Wireless VR Processor does even better.
“We can totally eliminate the need for frame rotation software, and that difference alone speeds up image rendering by 1000 percent,” Chambers explained.
Serious Simulations made a name for itself with the world’s only wireless Peripheral Vision Immersive Device (PVID), which enables true human peripheral vision in a virtual reality event.
The firm now produces the fastest wireless displays in the world.
Serious Simulations is a client company of the UCF Business Incubation Program in the Central Florida Research Park in East Orange County.
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For more information contact:
Damon Curry, Serious Simulations, LLC, 937-367-8441 dcurry@serioussimulations.com
Chris Chambers, CEO, Serious Simulations, LLC cchambers@serioussimulations.com
Carol Ann Dykes, Site Manager, UCF Business Incubation Program 407-207-7426 carolann.dykes@UCF.edu
About Serious Simulations, LLC
Serious Simulations LLC, an Orlando based Veteran Owned business, produces wireless head and helmet mounted displays (HMDs) with very high resolutions and wide fields of view. The industry-leading HMDs are available separately and also as components of Serious Simulations’ professional grade VR training systems for military, police, emergency responders and other trainees for complex or dangerous tasks. The company designs training systems using custom made hardware and software components for specific skill training needs, combined with motion tracking systems, wireless communications devices, display technologies and commercial game engines. The company is a partner in the Open Source Virtual Reality (OSVR) network. For more information, visit our web site at www.serioussimulations.com.
About the UCF Business Incubation Program
The University of Central Florida Business Incubation Program is a community resource that provides early-stage companies with the tools, training and infrastructure to become financially stable, high growth / impact enterprises. Since 1999, this award-winning program has helped hundreds of local startup companies reach their potential faster by providing vital business development resources.
With seven facilities throughout the region, the UCF Business Incubation Program is an economic development partnership between the University of Central Florida, the Corridor, Orange, Osceola, Seminole and Volusia Counties, and the cities of Apopka, Kissimmee, Orlando and Winter Springs. Participating companies sustain more than 3,600 local jobs and have had a total impact of $1.51 Billion on regional sales and $2.48 Billion on regional economic output. During the last fiscal year, the program has returned $7.95 for every $1.00 invested in the program. For more information, visit www.incubator.ucf.edu.
ABOUT OSVR:
OSVR™ is a software platform designed to set an open standard for virtual reality input devices, games and output to provide the best possible VR game experience. Supported by industry leaders, the OSVR framework unites developers and gamers alike under a single platform. Plug in. Play Everything.
For the full list of OSVR supporters go to http://www.osvr.org
Like OSVR on FB: https://www.facebook.com/OpenSourceVR
Follow OSVR on Twitter: https://twitter.com/OpenSource_VR
PRESS CONTACTS:
press@osvr.org
APPENDIX: NEW OSVR SUPPORTERS:
The OSVR partner network has grown in size since the last update with 65 new companies bringing the total number of supporters to 230, one of the companies is…
Serious Simulationswas founded to provide professional trainers of dangerous and complex tasks a complete suite of mixed reality training products to improve performance. The company designs and manufactures individual and small group immersive simulators where human motion is the primary interface for the experience. Display technology is key to the experience, and the company currently has the widest FOV, high resolution, VR display in a wireless package.
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