CastAR - augmented reality glasses from former Valve employees

The kickstarter system has an augmented reality system, inspired by a scene from the fourth Star Wars episode , where Chewbacca and R2-D2 play the local equivalent of chess. At the time of writing this article, Jerry Ellsworth and Rick Johnson - the so-called inventors - have already managed to collect half of the required $ 400,000.

The system works on the principle of a 3D cinema. Two micro-projectors that project a stereoscopic image are built into the frame of the glasses. The reflected light enters the active shutter lenses, which show a different picture for the left and right eyes, which leads to the appearance of the 3D effect. Included with glasses is a special reflective "tablecloth", on which infrared marks are applied. A small camera located between the projectors finds these marks and uses them to track the location of the glasses, and special software adjusts the picture.


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First of all, castAR is focused on board games, so under the reflecting tablecloth there is a large RFID reader that can track labeled game figures and other gaming accessories. For example, in the video it was shown how with the help of one such labeled bar the player built the walls of the game level.

If desired, castAR can be turned into virtual reality glasses with a special nozzle that redirects the projector's rays. It is doubtful that castAR will be able to compete with Oculus Rift, but the feature is interesting.



Also included with the system is a "magic wand", which can be used as a joystick and a 3D manipulator. On the stick there are several buttons and an analog stick.



SDK is available for developers and Unity support is claimed. In the future, they plan to add support for other engines and promise to think about connecting the glasses to mobile devices.

The collected money will be spent on prototyping, recruiting the team, developing the SDK and producing consumer versions of the system.

At one time, Jerry Ellsworth became famous for having designed a single-chip Commodore 64 with thirty built-in games. Rick Johnson is also not a loser, a real veteran of the gaming industry, he worked on games like the Star Wars Jedi Academy and Quake 4, and in Valve he worked on the graphics engine in Dota 2 and Left 4 Dead 2.

It is noteworthy that at the beginning of this year, they, along with many other Valve employees, were fired after the company decided to focus on developing Steam Machines. As firing they were allowed to keep all the development themselves. That's how it happens.