SAN FRANCISCO: Virtual reality is a dream of video game lovers, but it is poised to blast far beyond play to education, medicine, architecture and other learning arenas.

Thanks to head gear from Facebook-owned Oculus VR (Rift) and Sony’s “Project Morpheus” — now renamed PlayStation VR — virtual reality is expected to hit the mainstream next year.

Some developers, however, are intent on putting virtual reality headsets to more productive uses than gaming. Andrew Tschesnok, founder and chief executive of Organic Motion, sees the target market as including anyone who uses video, from YouTube bloggers to CNN.

Organic Motion bills itself as the world’s first real-time virtual reality content creation studio and was among the innovative companies focused on the topic at a TechCrunch Disrupt startup conference in San Francisco this week. Tschesnok showed off his company’s virtual reality spin on green screen backdrops.

The Organic Motion device uses a ring of cameras to capture images of people in 3D and integrate the characters live into virtual reality video.