What Reality Do You Prefer? castAR Glasses Able to Create 3D Holographic Images


CastARTwo men, Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson, were working for the incredible software giant, Valve. Suddenly let go back in February, the last thing they were going to do is give up on the top-secret project they had been passionately working towards. Luckily Valve allowed the two to take the project with them as their own, which then assisted in the start up of their company, Technical Illusions. With dedication and hard work the castAR idea was born, first being revealed at Maker Faire 2013. Essentially a pair of shutter glasses, castAR has amazing capabilities to transform and recreate augmented, virtual experiences. With virtual reality hardware and software expecting a huge increase to nearly $1.06 billion by 2018, good idea for these boys to aim in the right direction with an audacious impression.
CastAR1Technical Illusions launched the glasses on Kickstarter this week in hopes of having another impressive debut (and successful funding) while proving how innovative and unique they are. From gaming to simulating flight, you can sanction your reality view in accordance to how you will need to see and interact in the three dimensions. How does this all work? The glasses allow the user to transform an experience by holding your 3D universe still while you move around in it. Bridging that gap between the physical and virtual world was accomplished with the use of two peripherals, first being the Magic Wand. This being the controller, it lets you position and align things in your world the the use of a one handed joystick. Second is the RFID Tracking Grid allowing you to individually track, identify and augment objects. It doesn't matter what type of reality you are intrigued to change. Anything from video games, board games or other scenarios, alter it to your liking. If you were playing a board game for example, the experience would be similar to a scene from Star Wars: Episode IV where R2-D2 and Chewbacca play a chess game, holographic 3D-style.
CastAR2castAR really is a three-in-one headset because of the clip-on attachment that allows you to experience either true AR or full virtual reality eye wear. The latter of the two would be similar to a ride with the Occulus Rift. Weighing less than 100 grams, with 720p resolution, and designed to sit nicely over prescription glasses, they aimed to make these as versatile as possible for a wide audience. Finally the specifics of the glasses involve just two components. The frames contain two micro-projectors, each creating a perspective view of a stereoscopic 3D representation onto the surface. As your eyes focus on the projection, a tiny camera between the projectors scans for infrared LED markers on the surface so the software is able to track your head's position to then adjust the images accordingly. While connected to a USB port, the glasses use HDMI to get video and the makers are currently working on communication with mobile devices. Because projected augmented reality lets you see both the physical and virtual worlds, your eyes should experience no strain, as you are viewing images at a natural distance. Resources between these two determined men have been stretched thin, and they “believe they have something special, and that the future is bright for the technology”. With almost 170 thousand earned the first day of launching castAR on Kickstarter, looks like you don't even have to try the glasses on to see something special.

Topics: Technology News Display Screen Technology Gadgets & Peripherals Inventions & Innovations

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