Back then it was in pictures, now it’s in video games. For the last 100 years, VR has enabled people to see and experience things they can’t do in real life. Humans possess an innate sense of adventure and discovery. Today’s virtual reality does the same thing, only in the frame of today’s most popular entertainment medium, video games.
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ViewMaster took people on fantastic journeys to see places and things that just were not accessible before the age of cheap air travel. When you think about VR, it’s easy to apply modern technology to it, but the technology is irrelevant. The ViewMaster was the original virtual reality device, and it captured the imagination of the public for nearly a century. “We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Mattel to create a family adventure integrating the old school turn and click stereoscopic device with the modern world of virtual reality.” “View-Master was the first device that allowed families all over the world to escape their reality and take them places they never thought they could go”, said Jonathan Glickman, MGM’s motion picture group president. “Since the 1940s, View-Master has inspired wonder and joy in children of all ages, creating huge opportunities for storytelling,” said Robbie Brenner, Mattel’s head of film. The product went nowhere, but might be featured in the upcoming MGM feature film announced this year based upon the View-Master. It was an implementation of Google Cardboard utilizing a smartphone. In 2016, Mattel announced a collaboration with Google to produce the View-Master Virtual Reality Viewer. They made scenic reels depicting tourist attractions until 2008. ViewMaster was bought and sold over the next decades by companies like GAF, Ideal Toy Company, and Tyco Toys, which eventually merged with Mattel, which made the product under its Fischer-Price line. See also VR Esports Games: Competitive Recipe for Growth They made images of Disney characters and the grand opening of Disneyland in California, cementing their relationship. The acquisition gave them licensed access to content from Disney. The ViewMaster spawned a rival, Tru-Vue, which Sawyer’s acquired in 1951, cementing their monopoly. In the 1940s the US military saw potential in using ViewMasters for training and purchased 100,000 viewers and almost 6 million wheels. ViewMaster became one of the most well-known brands in the world. 3D scenes of the Carlsbad Caverns and Grand Canyon wowed the world. It was sold at photography shops, stationery stores, and scenic attractions. The ViewMaster was introduced at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. He designed a machine that mounted the tiny pieces of color transparency onto cardboard wheels.
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Mayer had recently met William Gruber, who had made a stereo imaging rig out of some Kodak cameras using the new Kodachrome 16-mm film. He was the Palmer Lucky of his day.īy the mid-20-’s, Sawyer’s Photo Finishing was the largest producer of scenic postcards in America. He scraped together $3500 from his father, and $1600 in insurance money left over from his fiancée’s father’s inheritance and bought into Sawyer’s Photo Finishing Service in 1919. After returning from serving in the US Army during WWI, he in the photo-finishing business.
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The ViewMaster was invented by a pharmacist named Edwin Mayer, who worked in an Owl Drug store in Portland Oregon. I had one as a kid, and you probably did too if you’re an old fart like me. It came with little round paper discs with stereographic images embedded. The most popular stereoscope product and the first Virtual Reality viewer was the wildly popular ViewMaster 3D.