Who We Are

VPixx Technologies is a privately held company serving the vision research community by developing innovative hardware and software tools for vision scientists. Founded in 2001 by Peter April, VPixx Technologies has built an international reputation for supplying quality instruments to researchers and teachers in the fields of visual psychophysics, electrophysiology, cognition, and fMRI. Today, our team of trained vision scientists, developers and engineers continue to provide solutions for researchers pushing the boundaries of our knowledge of the visual system and the brain. 

Our revolutionary VIEWPixx and DATAPixx graphics and data acquisition systems provide vision scientists with a hardware toolbox implementing high performance video, analog I/O, digital I/O, and audio I/O, all with microsecond synchronization to video refresh. Our research-grade DLP projector, the PROPixx, provides a refresh rate of up to 1440 Hz and a fully linear gamma for precision control of visual stimuli, and is MRI and MEG compatible. The TRACKPixx3 2 kHz binocular eye tracking system is seamlessly integrated with our data acquisition systems and displays for streamlined experiment control. Scientists can integrate VPixx hardware into their own ANSI C, Python or MATLAB programs using our software APIs.

What We Believe

  • We believe that successful product development and evolution can only be accomplished with direct input from vision researchers.
  • We believe that we will be successful if our customers are successful.
  • We believe that all programmable hardware should be field upgradable so that it can grow with your evolving research requirements.
  • We believe that all programmable hardware should be supported on multiple operating systems, and be accompanied by full register-level documentation and free open-source software interfaces.
  • We believe that a small group of motivated individuals can accomplish the extraordinary.

Customer Relationship

At VPixx Technologies, we develop long-term relationships with our customers. We will begin with a comprehensive meeting involving your team and ours, so that we may understand your research and your requirements. One or more VPixx design engineers may be present during this initial conversation. We then propose one or several solutions which will fulfill your requirements and help you attain your research goals. Our complete solutions often include personal touches such as custom cabling between your existing lab equipment and your new VPixx hardware. We can also provide you with standard or customized button boxes and other hardware as well as a small custom demo application to help get your new equipment up and running quickly. If you have questions, our free technical support is only a phone call away. Emails are usually answered within 1 hour. We want you to succeed in your research, and we want you to recommend VPixx Technologies to your colleagues.

Research being what it is, requirements evolve over time. In order to best serve our customers, all VPixx Technologies products are field upgradable. If your research requires a new product functionality, just give us a call. We can often implement the new feature in our labs, then email you a firmware upgrade which you can use to reflash your existing VPixx product. This greatly increases the useful lifetime of your hardware investment.

Our product development strategy is based on continuous discussion with our customers, and new products are typically designed in conjunction with early-adopting labs which are willing to serve as guides for our development.

Meet Our Team

VPixx Executive

Peter April, BCompSc
CEO

In 1983, Peter April began work as a computer programmer at the Concordia University Vision Lab, while simultaneously beginning a Bachelor’s degree in computer science. During these years, Mr. April wrote a wide range of programs for presenting visual imagery as well as collecting and analyzing data. He also designed and constructed specialized electronic hardware including an eye-tracker and a graphics board for collaborative research with CAE Electronics of Montreal (a manufacturer of flight simulators).

In 1997 Mr. April developed the first version of the VPixx visual testing program in collaboration with a consortium of research labs. Recognizing that many vision labs required specialized imagery which could not be generated by commercial graphics boards, Mr. April also developed the VPixx Graphics Adaptor. While serving a growing number of researchers, Mr. April has had the opportunity to develop innovative tools in many fields, including an optical instrument for imaging the retina, and a medical instrument using audio evoked potentials to measure the level of consciousness of a patient during surgery.

Today Mr. April continues to serve his clients, meets with researchers at international conferences, and leads VPixx Technologies in its quest to create innovative tools for the scientific community.

Jean-François Hamelin, Eng
Vice President

Today, Mr. Hamelin leads the VPixx Technologies manufacturing department and is responsible for the hardware design of current and future tools to be used by the scientific community.

In 2001, Mr. Hamelin graduated from Montreal’s École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS) with a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. In 2009, as a new shareholder of the company, Mr. Hamelin contributed to the design and production of the new generation of VPixx products. He brought to the company a strong background in quality control as well as electrical and mechanical design, which he acquired while working in the avionics sector between 2001 and 2009.

Sébastien Blanchette, CPA
CFO

Mr. Sébastien Blanchette is a licensed Chartered Professional Accountant. He joined VPixx Technologies Inc. in 2015 with the challenge of ensuring the financial and operational performance of the company’s various departments.

Prior to joining VPixx, he implemented a manufacturing company’s complete accounting system, to validate and establish the profitability of projects as well as their effectiveness and efficiency. Today Mr. Blanchette directs the accounting department, as well as VPixx human resources.

Staff Scientists

Sophie Kenny, Ph.D.

Sophie has been a Staff Scientist for VPixx since 2018. She enjoys developing cognition and perception experiments using specialized research equipment and published research papers using eye tracking, motion capture, virtual reality, fMRI, and the PROPixx projector’s 480 Hz video mode. At VPixx, she leverages her interest for education and her wide-ranging research experience to increase researchers’ understanding of the technology behind VPixx products and increase the quality of their data acquisition and interpretations. Sophie obtained her Ph.D. in Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Sciences from Queen’s University in 2017 and also worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Waterloo.

Lindsey Fraser, Ph.D.

Lindsey completed her PhD at York University in Toronto, Canada in 2019. Her research interests are in psychophics, multisensory perception and sensory integration. As a graduate student Lindsey also served on multiple boards as a student representative, and organized Virtual Reality workshops and networking events for graduate students. Lindsey’s favourite part of research is experiment design– building, coding, and testing. Since joining VPixx in 2019, Lindsey has become both scientific consultant and techical support for VPixx tools. As part of her role, she develops training materials for all levels of scientists, advises on equipment layout and integration, and helps troubleshoot experiment design challenges. She enjoys helping new and existing VPixx users take advantage of the precise, powerful research equipment VPixx has to offer, to design leading edge research protocols and collect high fidelity data.

Jonathan Tong, Ph.D.

Jonathan completed his PhD in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour at McMaster University in 2014. Since then, he has completed postdoctoral fellowships at Universität Hamburg (Germany), studying audiovisual integration, and at York University’s Centre for Vision Research, studying stereoscopic depth perception in virtual environments.  He has a general interest in the neuroscience and psychophysics of spatial perception across multiple sensory systems, but has recently focused on the perception of depth in vision and how it can be distorted by optics.

The Team

Danny Michaud-Landry, B.Sc.

Technical Support Manager

Nicolas Gauthier, B. Eng

Lead Software Developer
Product Owner – LabMaestro Pack&Go

Jonathan Gauthier, Eng

Product Owner – DLP Projectors

David Pagé, B. Eng

Product Owner – TRACKPixx3

Mathieu Janson

Product Owner – LabMaestro Builder

David Thibodeau, Ph.D.

Software Developer

Olivier Bertrand, Eng.

Systems Engineer

Samuel Caron Rollin, Jr. Eng

Mechanical Designer

Samuel Lafond

Electrical Designer

Marc Renaud

Senior Technician

Frédéric Lafond

Electronics and Quality Control Technician

Jessica Lavoie

Administrative Assistant