I stumbled on this at over at the TWIP-forums and searched here to see what has been said about them. This considering the massive interest in Occulus Rift, which for me has a massive flaw since it blindfolds me... and I found nothing. The CastAR has to me a much higher appeal since I can choose exactly where I want to see the game and where I want my wheel/buttons/shifter... Check here for more (very "techie upstart" look) http://technicalillusions.com/ Thoughts on this?
what? This is a static screen with what simply looks like positional head tracking to make the screen feel like a window into the virtual world but it's still 2D. Did i miss something?
Well, I haven't seen more than anyone else, but judging from the "media" section at their website and what they explain there, it's proper 3D. Image is seen through 3D-glasses (flicker or filter i don't know), with the difference that they also use two small projectors, so you get proper 3D, projected whereever you turn your head, as long as you have that reflective surface there... I can imagine a rig with simple canvas surrounding the driver. I can still see my hands, my wheel, buttons and stuff, all while being surrounded with 3D-game environment all around.
Dead on Axly. I already emailed them already stating what an enormous influence they can be for the simracing community, maybe even in a way better than the Rift since we still get to see our own hands and gear. This was the unsettling part for me with the rift, on the one hand it was the most immersive piece of kit I have ever seen, but then again the disconnected feel (everybody probably had the 'talking' pillar experience in the house demo) really makes it weird somehow. And indeed if you fully enclose your rig with screens, you still have the full immersion the rift offers, but without the tunnel vision and possibly motion sickness. The glasses are supposedly 'regular' shutter glasses which work at 120hz each.
Ok, i understand it better now. The video demonstration is just in 2D for this demonstration purpose and it's showing off the directional and positional tracking on a larger screen. But this doesn't look like anything new to me. Simply a souped-up version of a 3D display with something to the effect of trackir. The screen is still statically located which means you have to have many screens (and in this case also many projectors) to increase your available field of view like any other multi-monitor based setup. The difference in the tracking appears to be that they use a positional based tracking (perhaps only) between the glasses and the screen to get the correct viewing angle into the virtual world, rotating your view around some fixed point inside the virtual world. If you wanted ultra realism for cockpit simulation with 1:1 size of the virtual:real world, you'd want that fixed point of rotation to be exactly on the screen however far you'd have it placed away from you (hope you get understand what i mean). But for racing cockpit simulation your head does not do any amount of translational movement in any real car (strapped firmly into position), only directional freedom and since this demonstration is only highlighting advantages to big translational movements of the head relative to the screen i can't see any benefits to racing or any game/simulators that i would play on. Don't get me wrong, it's still a neat piece of technology and would be fun to try out, just not sure what sort of application(s) this would be advantageous for or heighten the experience of (rts's perhaps?). I got very nauseated by the rift (when i had it) and there were many of flaws with the dev kit that need mega workarounds for the next evolutions of the product before it's properly consumer friendly and ready to use, but i really can't see any alternative solution in the pursuit of complete virtual immersion (well....add in a hydraulic motion platform and your 95%+ there).
If I understand the product correctly, for me, this is ultimately what I wanted from the Rift. The positional things the Rift does is awesome, you can actually lean in to get a closer look at the dials, look into mirrors, in shooters around corners, or extra sickening (literally) while driving you can look up into the sky. I imagine these same things being possible with this unit, only without knocking your drinks all over your desk
These things you actually can't do with the dev kit, it has no positional tracking, only rotational tracking for the moment. They plan to implement translational tracking into future models to take the rift from only 3 degrees of freedom to the full 6 d.o.f. This is actually one of the possible contributors to motion sickness, the fact that you can move your head position irl but you virtual head remains fixed. Anyone with a rift and trackir can use the translational tracking in tadem to provide the positional tracking but i wonder about the latency.
When I tried it, I do believe it very much had positional tracking, both in Unreal and our own software
Well..no? The projectors are two, mounted on the glasses. The Main Selling Point for Me is that i can build a rig with a screen shaped the way i want it... I see my hands, i see my buttons, my Wheel, and as i turn my head a Little, or lean it, i see Everything on the Place it's supposed to be. (gaahh, caps galore, writing on my phone)
Indeed! Weird, got the idea that worked Anyway, with a trackIR that should work as you mentioned. Yep!
Ahhh....so sorry guys, shooting my mouth off without actually knowing what the technology was, how terrible silly of me. I didn't realise the projectors were mounted on the glasses itself....wow, i was totally not expecting that, what a fantastically innovative idea! Still my own fault for not checking out what the tech was but please post pictures and/or explanation of how the technology works next time, the video explains nothing about the projectors on the glasses or just about anything!
Hehe, i was one second away from dismissing them myself before i noticed the projectors... Once i saw that and realized that this was something New, I had to post. This means that you can place the screen material basically whereever, and at any angle around your Seat since the image is projected from your viewpoint. Getting more and more curious about this.
I got some information from one of the people behind the project, and the Kickstarter announcement is only a couple of weeks away, so I guess we should get some more info about it then
Ok, it has 100% of my interest now. I'll be looking to back them come the start of their Kickstarter campaign if it's reasonable priced. Sweeeet!
I couldn't get trackir and the rift to work together/at the same time. Whenever trackir was running the rift sensor was disabled. These things do look pretty cool though. Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4
The one thing that worries me is the projectors. Decent micro projectors are quite pricey, and still not super good. Two of them, with enough rewolution (720p feels inadequate) and with enough power to make them useful in other than pitch black rooms... The risk is that they will be either crazy expensive, or not good enough. Apart from that CastAR seems excellent, and i can just agree, their kickstarter is definately something i'll try to pay up to. I wonder how much specific application support is needed... ISI should check this too EDIT: actually.. I'm also wondering about the FOV. It looks sort of narrow in its' current state. (still cool though)
