
CastAR: the most versatile AR & VR system  - deutronium
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/technicalillusions/castar-the-most-versatile-ar-and-vr-system
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leoedin
This looks pretty incredible! I was initially slightly sceptical (3D printed
glasses, slightly conceptual looking design), but reading what they've
accomplished so far pretty much eliminates that scepticism. The project
founders (Jerri Ellsworth in particular is a huge name in electronics) bring a
lot of credibility as well. I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes!
Hopefully they can raise enough money.

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zetx
Jeri has a more detailed and technical video on her channel that goes more in-
depth than the Kickstarter video:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc2NQVQK69A](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc2NQVQK69A)

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theschwa
I'm glad they have a separate package just for the tracking system. I listened
to a podcast with Jerri that was posted here, that I can't find at the moment,
where she discusses the details of the work that went into building the ASIC
that performs the positional tracking, and I see tons of potential for this in
other projects as well.

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aray
What I like best about this is that it lends itself to 3rd-person vantage
views, and static fields (overlooking a map, looking into a box, etc) which
tend to be more comfortable AR & VR than trying to track/render a first person
view (oculus rift) at 60 fps == less "VR sickness".

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VikingCoder
Walk me through how multiple users are looking at the same screen. Isn't
everyone projecting 2 images of their own? Are the polarized glasses really
narrow band, or something?

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alvarop
The retro-reflective surface makes sure the projector light only bounces back
in your direction (well most of it). Someone standing a few feet away won't
see what you're seeing.

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aray
Without a multi-user frame sync, this prohibits users from being near-angles
from each other to the retro-reflector, which basically prevents someone from
"pointing" in AR into the others' field of view. Not necessarily a big
limitation, but say you want to point out e.g. a terrain feature. If the
software lets you select it, awesome! but if it's unselectable, you just have
to try to describe it "the tree three trees over from the west wall... no not
that one". Having good 'pointer drop' support mitigates this I suppose.

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webjprgm
You can see the person's finger (or the CastAR wand's tip). I imagine the
rendering engine will show the same thing in the same place relative to the
real world for both users. It doesn't have to, in the case of a game where you
each have your own point of view, but it could if the game works well that
way.

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webjprgm
How does this compare to Oculus Rift in terms of cost, quality, and potential
to be a "game changer" as everyone calls both? Especially since CastAR can be
both AR and VR, could one hook up a CastAR to the games and demos we already
have for Oculus Rift?

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julespitt
Between CastAR and Oculus Rift, it just seems an embarassment of riches,
speaking as someone who spent a brief time working in VR in the early 90s.

It seems to me that the Oculus is for immersive environments; CastAR for
shared and/or augmented reality.

Adapting Oculus Demos would be awkward because CastAR has the reflective
surfaces as limited "portals" into the 3d environment. Although I'd guess the
3d engine work would be easily adaptable.

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webjprgm
They have a clip-on to the glasses that convert from AR to VR mode. So you
wouldn't need a reflective surface portal as you say. I believe switching
between the two headsets would just be a matter of software. I'm wondering if
that support exists or is easy to make, or whether there would be difficult
challenges to it.

Basically, I'd prefer to buy one system that could be both AR and VR than two
separate systems, one for VR and one for AR. So that would make CastAR beat
out Oculus Rift unless the Oculus Rift was just so much better or the software
was incompatible.

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arjn
I love it, I'm in!

