Virtual reality turns gaze to porn

If I hold down another, she rises above the bed and hangs in mid-air. Another button makes her grow gigantic so that I have to crane my head back to see past her immense thigh. Pressed again, she shrinks down to the size of a doll.

Blinking, I find myself back in the stark lowceilinged studio. I am, says a man we'll call Toby, among the first he has trialled the tech on. This is the head office and body-scanning facility of Veiviev, of which Toby is the founder.He uses a pseudonym for fear of tarnishing other VR projects he is working on.

Toby is among the few engaged in a pornographic space race. The first man to the moon will be he who achieves video-quality interactive content. An immersive porn videogame, if you like, in which the character(s) will respond to your every prompt and indulge your every fantasy .

In the centre of Toby's studio stands a rig of 150 Canon 100D cameras pointed inward from every conceivable angle to a central stage. This is where he photographs the models. A set of images taken simultaneously is processed by a computer 100 times more powerful than a home PC to create VR reproductions in detail.

Rebecca Bolen of SugarDVD -a porn Netflix of sorts currently researching VR technology -is cautious in giving a time frame for the technology .“A lot of this is still very out there.“

The Rift is among the handful of VR headsets to be launched in the next two years .While the Rift's motion-sensor camera gives a limited scope for movement, the SteamVR headset from Valve allows users to move freely within a demarcated space, and have those movements mirrored in the VR world.Duck, jump, roll over and VR will react accordingly .

With the potential for a sizeable market, porn industry players are quickly turning their attention to VR. Brian Schuster originally made his fortune with an early search engine dedicated solely to porn and then with pop-up internet ads. Last month, he ploughed $50m (Rs 320 crore) into creating a new Oculus Rift-compatible version of his VR world, Red Light Center (RLC).

Based on Amsterdam's Red Light District, RLC allows users to build an “anatomically correct“ avatar. They are then free to wander through strip clubs, engaging in all kinds of activities with other avatars controlled by other users. Want to tie someone up and spank them? Just select the option from a menu and watch the fun pan out.

So what would the effect of this be on the way we behave? Dr Ashley Conway is among the few psychologists in the UK developing VR as a tool to treat psychological disorders. “Even though there is a part of your brain telling you that this is an illusion, you can't help reacting to it. It's a huge adrenaline rush, which will be addictive.“

A Spanish company, Virtual Real Porn, began offering 2D video filmed and optimised for VR headsets at the beginning of the year. With a 180-degree field of vision, you are free to look around while engaging in a variety of sexual activities. A spokesman for the company said that they , too, hope to go interactive in 2016. But the ultimate goal is to create participators, not spectators.

Toby loads up a video on his computer monitor.A woman's chest is being rubbed by a hand and moves accordingly. Using a piece of kit called a Leap Motion tracking device attached to the front of the headset, a user can view their hands in virtual reality and interact with what they see. Complex algorithms borrowed from the world of special effects then cause the digitally rendered woman's chest to respond as normal human flesh would. “It's all mathematics and calculated physics,“ Toby explains.“Her skin has weighting to simulate muscle tissue.“ However, Toby says that not everyone will be won over by VR porn.“Feminist groups, religious fundamentalists, all these kinds of people,“ he says. “They're going to go completely nuts when they understand what this is."