Oculus Rift used to design prototype vehicles at Ford facilities

Ford has teamed up with virtual reality headset developer Oculus Rift and motion capture company Vicon to "prototype and evaluate vehicles in a virtual environment".

According to a Fast Company report, Ford staff wander about a stage wearing an Oculus Rift headset, tracked by motion sensing cameras, so they can closely examine designs.

This process is significantly cheaper than using CAD software, apparently, and allows teams in international locations to collaborate in the same virtual space.

It's one of the first industrial applications to come to light since the gaming tech popped up on our radars. See it in action in the video below; it reminds me a bit of Forza's car inspection Kinect thing.

Although the headset was crowdfunded, the company recently received an additional $75 million investment to help bring a consumer version to market. A new version of Oculus Rift is on show at CES 2014.