Founded in 1994, Immersion is an SME that is currently the French leader in the development and distribution of multi-sensorial devices for visualisation, interaction and collaborative working. Based on these many years of experience in the field and an active RTD department, Immersion invents and distributes innovative input devices and visualisation interactive hardware solutions for long time clients such as EADS, THALES, DASSAULT, EUROCOPTER, CEA, CS, DCN, ESSILOR, FIAT, ORANGE R&D, RENAULT, PSA PEUGEOT CITROEN, LABRI, IRIT, CNRS, …

Applications most praised by such organisations include virtual prototyping as well as both the navigation and interaction within very large environments such as geographic maps or simulation results. Proper equipment, both desktop sized and larger scale immersive ones, enables people to be brought into the virtual 3D prototype. More specifically, immersive platforms enable one or several users to visualize and interact with 3D mock-ups of their project, or working environment, as if they were inside the real one.

Immersion RTD department is a multi-disciplinary team of PhD and engineers with acknowledged expertise in hardware development, electronics, human factors and interaction design. It is now one of the major activities of IMMERSION, since the many abilities exhibited by this department are providing the company with the capability to develop advanced hardware devices and to bring research ideas into new products. The close collaboration between Immersion and many virtual reality users ensures such research and development work is on par with the real-world users’ constraints.

This department gave rise to products commercially exploited such as:

• WAVE (a welding simulator sold worldwide) developed in the frame of the WAVE ICT project with DIGINEXT where Immersion has created an innovative hardware device combining a plasma display with ultrasonic and gyroscopic sensors for the training of welders.
• The CAT, an innovative device for the 6DOF navigation inside virtual cities, developed from laser sensors in the frame of the DIGINEXT's 'CRIMSON PASR project.
• The Cyclope, a real-time optical tracker, developed in the frame of the INSCAPE IST Integrated Project.
• The iliGHT 3D Table, the first multi-user immersive multitouch table, that was developed in the scope of the DIGINEXT's V-City FP7 project.

Its expertise in the development of new interaction devices, its unique pluri-disciplinary skills and proven research capabilities make the company a world-class expert as soon as new devices for 3D interaction and visualisation are to be created. Immersion has therefore contributed to create new devices for security and defence applications. The company participated in several RTD projects of the European Commission such V-City, INSCAPE, INDIGO, E-Sponder , TASS FP7 projects.

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