Ivan Sutherland was the first to articulate the principles of Mixed Reality (Including Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality) in a 1965 paper about the Ultimate Display. In 1968 his FJCC paper on an implemented system was the first to demonstrate these principles in action with a 3D Head Mounted Display, a term he also coined, that rendered images for the viewer's changing pose. The device, which utilized a headset purchased from Perkin Elmer, was suspended from the ceiling by a mechanical tracking device nicknamed “The Sword Of Damocles” and was the first AR system, presenting head-tracked computer graphics in an optical-see-through headset.

Sutherland's pioneering efforts laid the groundwork for the immersive experiences we have today, blending real and virtual worlds seamlessly. His contribution to the XR industry is therefore monumental, not only for inventing the concept of graphical user interfaces in AR and VR but also for his development of Sketchpad, an early predecessor to modern computer-aided design (CAD) systems. This innovation has had a lasting impact on both the XR industry and the field of computer graphics, revolutionizing how humans interact with digital environments.

Sutherland received the Turing Award, the IEEE John von Neumann Medal, and the first SIGGRAPH Coons Award, and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences.