Polhemus

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Polhemus logo
A variety of Polhemus products: two Liberty systems and a their peripherals including a Long Ranger in the back
Polhemus early system with VPL headset

Polhemus, originally known as Polhemus Navigation Sciences Inc. (PNSI), is an American company that makes electromagnetic 3D tracking systems. Polhemus' tracking systems were used in some of the first virtual reality systems. The trackers can be found in medical and flight simulator applications. Examples of their products are the Viper line and the Polhemus Patriot.

Polhemus' systems are comprised of a system electronics unit (SEU), a transmitter, and sensors. The SEU connects to a computer and plugs in to the source(s) and sensors.

Polhemus owned the 3space brand in the 1980s and 1990s. Polhemus' products include the Fastrak line. Polhemus marketed their line of 3D computer input devices under the 3Space brand.[1] Their military products were not branded 3Space.

All of Polhemus' patents on all of their advertised systems including the Viper have expired as of July 2025.

Polhemus electromagnetic transmitters use an air core, meaning it does not have a ferrous material inside it. This makes it lightweight.

Polhemus most recently paid a marketing firm to create a Chinese website, paid for chinese website advertising, and paid a firm to create a chinese social media presence.[2]

The company is named after Bill Polhemus. Polhemus' corporate name is Alken, Inc. and is incorporated in Vermont.[3][4]

Skip Rodgers is the president of Polhemus.[5][6][7]

Polhemus systems were used by VPL.

All of Polhemus' current SEUs have their plastic cases manufactured in Ohio.

3D tracking products[edit]

History[edit]

Polhemus was founded by William Polhemus as Polhemus Associates in Michigan in 1964.[10] In the late 1960s, Polhemus started with navigation system studies as part of military development programs for improving navigational systems in military aircraft. Shortly thereafter, internal research regarding magnetic fields led the company to make the world’s first magnetic 3D tracking system for objects in short range with high precision.[11] In other words, they did research on how to track objects' position and orientation in a three-dimensional space.[10]

The company moved to Vermont in 1969. In 1970, Polhemus worked with Northrop Corporation, and then changed their name to Polhemus Navigation Sciences, and incorporated in Vermont.[10][12][13]

Polhemus developed magnetic tracking for tracking a pilot's helmet for use with a head-up display. Polhemus received Air Force contracts in the early 1970s.[10] It faced financial difficulty by late 1973, and the company or its product rights were sold to the Austin Company, which was a conglomerate based in Cleveland, Ohio.[10]

The company was sold to McDonnell Douglas. It was called the Polhemus Navigation Sciences division of McDonnell Douglas.[14]

Polhemus made the first commercial 6DOF magnetic tracker in the world and sold it to the Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT). It was acquired by the Architecture Machine Group at MIT, under the direction of Nicholas Negroponte and Richard Bolt.[15]

Polhemus 3SPACE electromagnetic 3D tracking systems were available in 1985.[16]

Around the late 80s, the performance of a Polhemus system was said to be on the order of 120 milliseconds to register and report a new position and orientation.[17]

Two employees left in 1986 and founded Ascension.[10]

Polhemus was sold to Kaiser Aerospace and Electronics in 1988.[10]

A Polhemus system was used by Steve Jobs' company Pixar to create the digital 3D character models in Toy Story.[11][18]

In 1996 and 1997, Philip G. Cooper was the President of Polhemus.[12][19][20]

In 1996, Polhemus was a subsidiary of Kaiser Aerospace and Electronics.[19]

After 2000[edit]

Polhemus' current corporate name is Alken, Inc.[3][4] Alken, Inc. was incorporated in Vermont in 2002.[21]

Allan Rodgers was president and CEO in 2004.[22]

Patents[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ "Polhemus". https://web.archive.org/web/19970330140519if_/http://www.polhemus.com/ourprod.htm.
  2. ↑ "Polhemus Digital Marketing Strategy for China with IBT Online". 2024-11-18. https://ibt.onl/blog/polhemus-digital-marketing-strategy-for-china-with-ibt-online/.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Corporations Division". https://bizfilings.vermont.gov/online/BusinessInquire/TradeNameInformation?businessID=251741.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Patriot User Manual November 2004". http://www.math.uaa.alaska.edu/~moose/mhs/trunk/PolhemusActiveXControl/polhemus/Patriot/PATRIOT%20Manual.pdf.
  5. ↑ "Skip Rodgers « Virtual Reality and Healthcare Symposium '18". 2018-03-05. https://vrhealth18.flywheelsites.com/speakers/skip-rodgers/.
  6. ↑ "Top Simulation Solutions Company-2023". https://www.medicaltechoutlook.com/polhemus-innovation-in-motion.
  7. ↑ Partnership, Orlando Economic (2022-10-25). "High-Fidelity Motion Tracking Company Expands to Orlando Region". https://news.orlando.org/blog/high-fidelity-motion-tracking-company-polhemus-expands-to-orlando-region/.
  8. ↑ "Polhemus". https://web.archive.org/web/19970330140519if_/http://www.polhemus.com/ourprod.htm.
  9. ↑ "Polhemus All Trackers". https://polhemus.com/motion-tracking/all-trackers/.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 Carlson, Wayne E. (2017-06-20). "17.4 Interaction". The Ohio State University. https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/graphicshistory/chapter/1-4-interaction/.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 "MT2 Skip Rodgers Interview". https://polhemus.com/_assets/img/MT2_Interview_pdf.pdf.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Polhemus". https://web.archive.org/web/19970330140351if_/http://www.polhemus.com/aboutpol.htm.
  13. ↑ Cruz-Neira, Carolina; Sandin, Dan; DeFanti, Tom; Other, Along With. "Section 17: Virtual Reality". https://web.archive.org/web/20120213214810if_/http://excelsior.biosci.ohio-state.edu:80/~carlson/history/lesson17.html.
  14. ↑ https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/167962.165918
  15. ↑ ISBN 978-1500893293 Page 381
  16. ↑ "Virtual-Worlds Research at the Univeristy of North Carolina at Chapel Hill October 1991". https://www.cs.unc.edu/~fuchs/publications/VirtualWorldsResearch91.pdf.
  17. ↑ "Tracking a head-mounted display in a room-sized environment with lug, head-mounted cameras". https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA222545.pdf.
  18. ↑ Failes, Ian (2019-11-06). "Some of your favorite CG 'Toy Story' characters actually began as clay sculpts". https://beforesandafters.com/2019/11/06/some-of-your-favorite-cg-toy-story-characters-actually-began-as-clay-sculpts/.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 "Press Release: 1996-08-05: Sega Selects Polhemus to Develop Next Generation Motion Capture System". 2019-07-20. https://segaretro.org/Press_Release:_1996-08-05:_Sega_Selects_Polhemus_to_Develop_Next_Generation_Motion_Capture_System.
  20. ↑ "Polhemus Press Releases". 1997-05-22. http://www.polhemus.com/pressrel.htm#sega96.
  21. ↑ "Corporations Division". https://bizfilings.vermont.gov/online/BusinessInquire/BusinessInformation?businessID=123354.
  22. ↑ "Polhemus Announces a Standard Two Year Warranty on All 6 Degree-of-Freedom Tracking Products". 2004-04-29. https://polhemus.com/news/entry/polhemus-announces-a-standard-two-year-warranty-on-all-6-degree-of-freedom.
  23. ↑ "Method and apparatus for determining electromagnetic field characteristics within a volume". 1998-12-17. https://patents.google.com/patent/US6377041B1/.
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