Reading, MASS. - January 1, 2000 ? 3-D display startup Actuality Systems, Inc. announced today that it has closed an oversubscribed seed round of funding, raising $1.5 million from private and venture investors. The firm, a spinoff of the prestigious MIT $50k Entrepreneurship Competition, is developing what experts term "autostereoscopic volumetric display technology." That is, Actuality Systems?s device can project realistic, volume-filling, truly three-dimensional imagery that can be seen from nearly any angle and without cumbersome goggles. Initial markets include molecular visualization and mechanical design (MCAD).

Unlike traditional flat computer monitors, Actuality provides the user with seemingly floating imagery that is under real-time computer control. Today, their prototype uses lasers to provide fist-sized imagery with a resolution of 64 x 64 x 64 "volume pixels," or voxels. They expect to make a substantial jump in resolution this year by replacing the laser projection system with bright, fast, and compact projectors similar to those used in business presentations. "We are moving along a development trajectory which will lead from low- to moderate-resolution volumetric displays, on the order of 500 x 500 x 200 voxels per image. This is an exciting prospect for folks working with complex structures, such as pharmaceutical design and MCAD, where their design tasks will become orders of magnitude more productive," says Actuality?s founder and CTO, Gregg Favalora.

Actuality is surveying potential users to guide their product development process. The firm expects soon to announce details of platform compatibility, pre-existing application compatibility, and device characteristics.

Their 3-D display technology is breaking ground in a number of fields, including computer graphics. "It is exciting to be a founding member of a team which is devoted to pushing the envelope of display technology," says Michael Giovinco. "For decades, computer graphics has lived on the flat screen ? now it?s our opportunity to make great strides inventing new algorithms for volumetric displays."

Fields expected to be affected by the product are as diverse as medical imaging, pharmaceutical design, industrial design, entertainment, and electronic commerce. Soon, doctors will be able to diagnose patients in Actuality?s intuitive 3-D display; effective drugs will be designed on computer screens as realistic as hand-held chemical models; architectural designs will be lifted off the paper and into a seemingly floating model. According to Favalora, "This has the potential to make the world a better place. Doctors and scientists will work more effectively. Air-traffic control will be safer. And video games will be even more fun!"

The firm was founded in 1997 by a team of programmers and engineers and was given significant guidance by their Chairman, Rob Ryan, founder and former CEO of Ascend Communications, Inc. Actuality?s CTO, Gregg Favalora, whose inquiry into 3-D display technology began shortly after 8th grade, has recently won acclaim as one of the 100 top young technologists as awarded by MIT Technology Review?s TR100. After two years in a Cambridge basement halfway between Harvard and MIT, Actuality Systems has relocated in an office in Reading, Mass. Since founding, Actuality has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Wired Online, and GameSpot.