I'm pretty sure there is a difference between a projected 720p, or a cheap 720 display right in front of your eyes, correct me if I'm wrong. I'm also wondering about the lifespan of these mini projectors, do they get hot, do you need to change bulbs, etc. Is fov actually an issue since you are just using your own eyes to look at a screen? edit: Power is another point indeed, I wonder if you can make out anything when you want to have a go in the afternoon. That would be something fundamental to be tackled I think.
Thinking more on these I don't think they have as much potential as a Rift style device, one of the biggest advantages(and disadvantages!) the rift has at the moment is the fact it seals you off from the outside world, this helps sooo much with transporting you into the world, like how they dim the lights in a movie theater. Also the rift being a self contained unit can be used with zero space. I'd also guess they'll do the positional tracking with cameras on the rift, which would also allow them to do something like this
Thats indeed the power of the Rift, when positional tracking will be implemented and I don't think the castAR can get near that. Unless, you build a fully enclosed cockpit for your race/flight-sim!
Good point indeed. The movement of your head can probably be corrected to keep the horizon level. I worked with a motion rig where the rig itself had 6 degrees of movement while the screen and 5 projectors would be stationary. The movement of the rig was fed back into the camera system in the sim to cancel out the movements thus, while in the cockpit, the horizon would always be level I imagine something like this can work, if only they get access to the proper systems. I already forwarded them info about rFactor, ISI and I sort of mentioned Tim as well
Well, yes, that's also true by the look of the projectors fov in the video but the rift dev kit wasn't very wide either (about 90 degrees) but still pretty good but definitely needs increasing as does the resolution.
When you tilt your head, the image stays exactly where it was. I played the Jenga game they were demoing, walked to the side of the table and looked at it sideways - it's EXACTLY like you were looking at a real Jenga tower sitting on a table. This thing has no noticeable latency, no screendoor effect, 6 degrees of freedom up/down left/right in/out roll pitch yaw - as does the wand controller. It's accurate to 1/20mm at 1 meter. It was amazing and that wasn't even the final version that the Kickstarter will finance. That will have 2 720x1280 projectors running at 120Hz. I will be pledging day one.
So your saying, when you tilt your head the projected image (that is rectangular in shape like any other projector or display) counter-rotates to keep the image level with the horizon? Well, how the hell does it do that? There is one way i can imagine that that might be possible, with circular projectors (if they even exist) and then only switching on the ones that produce a standard 16:9 (or whichever aspect ratio) rectangular image. This way if you tilt your head left or right, since the projector is fixed to your heads rotational position the projector can self-align the image by the activating the correspondingly correct pixels/leds with help from the gyro's?
Since it knows how far and in which reaction you're moving it probably simply adds the negative version of that to the ingame camera, how hard can it be
I'd assume it works like if you wear glasses, tape over them but leave a square in the middle. No matter how you move your head the surroundings are still as they are, though you see different parts, and in different angles depending on how you move your head...
I didn't understand what either of you were saying. I get that the virtual world will be at the correct angle as you tilt your head so objects will appear correct at all times, but i'm asking about the edges of the projected display as your tilt your head.
reaction=direction in my post btw, bad typo.. Basically the goggles are linked to the camera ingame and it cancels out tilting to keep the horizon level in world space. I'm very sure all of this can be adjusted in the same way you can seperate moving and looking in TF2 and UDK with the Rift. As far as I understand you are only limited to how much reflective material you have around, if you build a 360 screen around you, there shouldn't be a single seam or edge anywhere
edit: please ignore what i'm saying, it doesn't matter that the imagine rotates with your head...it's the same as the rift.
The display reached to the edge of the retroreflective screen when looking horizontally - I was looking at a virtual Jenga tower sitting on a table like it was really there. The screen was about a meter wide and a meter away. If the edges showed when I tilted my head at 45 degrees, they were so far out of my central vision I didn't notice them. I rarely tilt my head like that when I drive, anyway. A possible custom racing rig - use a real [non operable] car, modify steering wheel and pedals &c for controllers, cover the windows with the retro screen, sit in car and race. I'm sure someone will do it. There's a guy converting an actual F-15 cockpit into a simulator, and he's going to use castAR. http://www.f15sim.com/misc/misc01.html
There are no gyros. There is an IR LED array on the screen/playing surface, and an IR camera on the glasses. I have a very slight idea how it might actually work [clever trig] so I won't hazard a guess. There's an fpga that decodes the signals/delays/view/whoknows of the IR LEDs. The precise orientation and position is sent back down via USB, the PC tells the projectors to show you what you would be looking at if you were looking at a real thing, each eye projector reflects off the screen back to that eye only. The shutters prevent crosstalk. The display is very bright. The light from the projectors is reflected right back to your eye in a narrow cone - if you watch someone wearing this you can't see what they see. At some point Jaron Lanier is going to try these, and kick himself. It's everything VR was supposed to be, but more.
The kickstarter project is live! http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/technicalillusions/castar-the-most-versatile-ar-and-vr-system
