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CRE Beginnings
AuSIM's technology "AuSIM3D" is a
fifth generation development
from the inception by Scott Foster
at Crystal River Engineering (CRE).
Mr. Foster founded CRE in 1986 on a contract with Beth Wenzel
from NASA Ames Research Center's Auditory Perception Lab
to develop a real-time immersive auralization system
to complement the real-time immersive visualization system
developed in the collaborating Visual Perception Lab
by
Scott Fisher at Ames,
from 1984 through 1990.
The Ames immersive virtual environment program was the birth of "Virtual Reality",
the term coined
by Jaron Lanier,
who was also contracted by the lab to develop the dataglove.
CRE's products were all hardware-based, and included, in order of release,
the Convolvotron,
Acoustetron,
Beachtron,
Alphatron,
Acoustetron II,
and
Snapshot.
Immersive Virtual Environment Technologies
Mr. Chapin moved his immersive virtual environment research
from University of Illinois
to Stanford University in 1989,
where he collaborated
with Dr. James Kramer in developing
the CyberGlove
and dexterous manipulation.
Kramer and Chapin co-founded Virtual Technology,
which later merged with Immersion Corporation,
another immersive technology spin-out of the same laboratory
of Stanford's Center for Design Research.
AuSIM's AuTrak common tracking instrument support technology
was born in this Stanford CDR laboratory.
Telepresence Research Connection
In 1991, Scott Fisher left NASA to found
Telepresence Research with
Brenda Laurel.
Telepresence hired Mr. Chapin as its first non-founding technical employee.
Mr. Chapin built an immersive virtual reality demonstration system, intregrating
Division (graphics),
Fakespace (visual display),
and Crystal River Engineering (3D audio) technologies.
The demonstration system highlighted CRE's "room simulation" technology,
which was a first for real-time room acoustic auralization.
Over the next five years, Foster and Chapin collaborated on many auralization technology developments.
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Aureal Creation
In 1996, Crystal River Engineering (CRE) merged with MediaVision
to form Aureal Semiconductor (later reduced to Aureal Inc.).
MediaVision was originally a group of brilliant engineers
who brought Stanford
CCRMA's wavetable synthesis
and 16-bit audio to the personal computer market,
directly competing with Creative Lab's 8-bit SoundBlaster PC monopoly.
Aureal hired William Chapin to the position of Director of Advanced Technologies,
reporting to CTO Scott Foster,
leading a group of scientists and engineers
to develop technologies for subsequent generations of Aureal products.
CRE became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Aureal,
continuing to produce products for non-consumer buyers.
William Chapin held the second title of Chief Engineer at CRE
since CRE products featured advanced technologies
that would later trickle down to Aureal consumer products.
Aureal Divesture
In 1997 Aureal decided to focus all of its corporate energies on the consumer entertainment markets,
primarily personal computer gaming and consumer television.
The Crystal River Engineering subsidiary was terminated.
Mr. Chapin negotiated the rights to all of the advanced technologies
applicable to mission-critical markets, including WaveTracing™.
AuSIM Engineering Solutions
In 1998, Mr. Chapin founded the sole proprietary AuSIM Engineering Solutions,
with a strong commitment from the US Navy.
Until the bankruptcy of Aureal in 2000, Aureal and AuSIM worked collaboratively in the marketplace,
exchanging market and sales leads.
The technology, however, was firmly and forever divided in 1998.
AuSIM shared no souce-code with Aureal,
re-writing every piece of all technologies as a new generation of code base.
As part of the deal,
AuSIM maintained the CRE code base and took on support and service of all existing CRE customers.
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