Virtual Reality Companies On the Edge

1. Facebook/Oculus VR
The VR company thats the leader, at least in terms of mindshare, is Oculus. It managed to lure two of the
top programmers in the country, Michael Abrash and John Carmack, to its development team. Oculus
became such a hot property Facebook shelled out $2 billion for a product not even shipping. Oculus got
major game developers on board early, hence its lead in the VR headset space, but it's finding business
uses. For example, Marriott Hotels is using the Oculus Rift headset as a way to showcase distant hotels
to potential guests. The headsets began shipping on March 28, 2016 for $599.
2. Google
While Oculus and other VR companies invest in expensive headsets made of hefty plastic, rubber and
metal, Google has a $15 headset made of cardboard called, what else, Google Cardboard. Cardboard is
designed specifically for using VR apps on Android smartphones. Google doesn't develop software like
Oculus does; instead, it encourages developers to make and sell VR apps for Google Play. Its emphasis
at this point is around games.
3. WorldViz
WorldViz is a virtual reality company that makes 3D interactive and immersive visualization and
simulation solutions aimed at universities, government institutions, and private business alike. Its software
allows customers to build 3D models for product visualization, safety training, and architecture
visualization. The company claims customers save about 90 percent of the costs involved in making real
physical models by making full sized virtual displays for layouts of buildings instead.
4. Bricks & Goggles
This Dutch software firm transforms construction designs from major CAD and other 3D modeling
software into three-dimensional VR environments, which you can then view in a life-like 3D image using
any of several headsets, including Oculus and Google Cardboard. This gives people a chance to "walk
through" a design, as it were, and see how it would look when completed, so they can make changes.
5. Marxent Labs
Marxent's Visual Commerce 3D Virtual Reality Design Studio & Showroom allows retailers and
manufacturers to create a 3D design studio and showroom for building live demos, similar to what Bricks
& Goggles does. This VR companys biggest customer is home improvement chain Lowe's, which offers
the Holoroom. Customers build a virtual room made of Lowe's products, then use the headset to see the
room as it would look when constructed.
6. Unity Technologies
A leading developer of 3D game technology, Unity offers a self-titled gaming development platform for
building VR games, and the company's CEO claims at least 90, if not 95 percent, of all content built so far
for VR has been built on Unity. It supports all headsets.
7. Microsoft HoloLens

Yes, Microsoft is very much a VR company. It introduced the headset at the 2015 Game Developer's
Conference as "a full Windows 10 device with holographic capability." In addition to the CPU and GPU
that other VR headsets use, Microsoft developed a holographic processing unit, or HPU. The HPU
processes and integrates data from the sensors, handling tasks such as spatial mapping, gesture
recognition, and voice and speech recognition. HoloLens is also wireless, unlike other headsets.
8. Magic Leap
Magic Leap makes a head-mounted virtual retinal display, which superimposes 3D computer-generated
imagery over real world objects by projecting a digital light field into the user's eye. This allows for placing
3D objects in the user's field of vision of the real world instead of a 100% virtual vision like other
headsets. Magic Leap has raised a record-breaking amount of money for a VR company; in December
2015, it raised $827 million in Series C funding, and in February it racked up another $793 million, the
largest amount of funding for a startup ever.
9. Vuzix
This VR company makes two devices, the M100 and M300, which are what Google Glass tried and failed
to be. It also makes iWear, a headset that offers the equivalent of a 125-inch 3D screen and headphones
with surround sound. It works with videogames to give 3D immersion.
10. CastAR
CastAR glasses are a spinoff from game developer Valve Software that projects 3D holographic images
in front of your eyes to offer a virtual layer on top of the real world (similar to Magic Leap) or feel like
youre immersed inside a game world. The VR company recently hit a snag and delayed the release of
the headset until 2017.
11. Sixense
Sixense's STEM (Sixense Tracking Embedded Module) goes one step beyond the usual headset to offer
a headset with hand-held controllers and a central base station to create an electromagnetic field with an
8-foot radius. Unlike a camera-based motion tracker like Microsoft's Kindle, it detects the movement of
the hand-held sensors for immersive gameplay.
12. Retinad Analytics
One of the few enterprise-oriented VR companies, Retinad provides companies with a "heatmap" of
users' browsing, navigation, purchasing behavior, and other analytical data on an e-commerce website,
allowing companies to get a 3D visualization of behavior and statistics. This allows you to see "hot
zones," where there may be problems or popular features alike. VR advertisers can track, monitor and
analyze the data and improve and change their ad strategy and placement accordingly.
13. Mechdyne
Mechdyne uses Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE), which projects a virtual reality environment
on three and six of the walls of a room-sized cube, to visualize data in a number of vertical industries. It
specializes in modeling and simulation, Big Data visualization, and collaboration.
14. Virtually Live

Can't get tickets to the Super Bowl? Virtually Live creates a VR version of the stadium and images of the
players are generated, allowing you to be there. It recreates the actual arena, so you actually walk
through the stadium, and can invite friends and all sit together just like you would at a real life game.
15. Vega
VR without the headset, Vega is designed for furniture and home dcor companies to scan their products
and then convert them to 3D models. Customers can then place and arrange the models to scale in a
virtual room, so they see how it will look when placed or positioned. This VR companys solution allows for
an immersive online shopping experience.
16. Virtalis
The core system for this VR company, ActiveWorks, allows customers to create 3D displays or virtual
visualizations of data, CAD designs or other data sources. Its specialty, though, is very large data sets. It
is designed for large-scale CAD models, including ships that let the designers "walk through" the ship
before they ever build it. In addition to design reviews, the software also lets users rehearse in-depth
training tasks, validate maintenance procedures or verify assembly and manufacturing processes.
17. AMD
AMD's graphics business has been far more successful than its CPU business, and two recent
announcements further that reputation. It announced Sulon Q, a spatially aware headset that combines
VR and augmented reality (AR). It's powered by an AMD CPU and GPU, plus an SSD and Windows 10,
all crammed into the headset.
In March AMD also introduced the Radeon Pro Duo, high-powered graphics card specifically designed for
VR content creators. It comes with the LiquidVR SDK for building all kinds of VR apps, entertainment to
business.
18. HTC Vive
Similar to Sixense, Vive is a complex system of a headset, two hand-held devices and sensors you place
around your room so it can track your movements. HTC partnered with Valve to create "room-scale"
games, so you don't just sit on the couch to play the game, you get up and move around. The box comes
with 16 different components, making setup a little daunting.
19. Samsung Gear VR
Samsung clearly a top VR company product Gear VR was designed with Oculus as a consumer
device for $199, and it works just with the newest generation of Samsung phones. In fact, you slide a
Samsung phone into the headset holder and it acts as the compute device. The headset is meant for
consumers and the only apps on it so far are games from third-tier developers.
20. Nvidia
Besides being the leading GPU maker, Nvidia is a now VR company it offers VRWorks, a developer
suite for building all kinds of VR apps. VRWorks helps developers create high resolution imagery with
lower latency and provide more realistic imaging and quicker adjustments of the images when the user
moves their head.