This video is way too short, but it will give you a taste of why castAR is a MUST HAVE if you're into cockpit building at all (car, airplane, mech, spaceship, whatever...)

http://youtu.be/4FhdqMpTgSk

There's only 13 hours left (as of 7:30am, PDT) to get in on it.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/technicalillusions/castar-the-most-versatile-ar-and-vr-system

g.

Woohoo! Stretch goal #4 ($900,000) met, and there's still 12 hours left. That gets us the gyros (and accelerometers and magnetic direction sensing) added in.

They could hit a million before this closes out. (They need another stretch goal!)

They've added a $1M stretch goal. Haptic feedback in the wand controller as well as some other things.

I had it confirmed by Jeri that a tandem seating arrangement would work, so that means that building tandem cockpits (F-15E anyone? ) is now practical.

g.

That latest video does look like the tech could form the basis for a 'pit. Unfortunately it doesn't really address concerns about peripheral vision immersion, but technically I don't see that as much of a problem. All that's really needed are another two microprojectors to increase the field of projection to the sides. Given than there would be no need to overlap the additional microprojectors this would give ~ 195 degree FOV (65+65+65; I'm assuming that the existing projectors have a total overlap in their FOV to provide 3D capability). 195 FOV would be virtually indistinguishable from total peripheral vision immersion- you might need a higher-end GPU to drive the pixels, but that tech already exists

While I'm not sure what retail price point they're looking at, it will almost certainly be competitive with multimonitor set-ups (and likely a lot less expensive for the equivalent effect) and will have additional benefits, such as being able to stow away the additional "screen" when not simming.

I'm really glad to see they've blown by their Kickstarter goal and stretch goals! I'm still skeptical, but I like what I'm seeing... a lot. If the FOV was doubled to 130 degrees I'd be sold, even though 180 degree horizontal FOV would be ideal.

There's this radical move you can do - it's called "turn your head". Works AMAZINGLY well.

castAR isn't perfect, but it does the job better than anything else so far.

$189 for castAR or $900+ for three projectors plus another $500 for good screen warping software...

g.

I love your enthusiasm Gene
But turning my head just puts castAR in the same category as TIR with the exception that I will not have to keep my eyeballs on the computer monitor Don't get me wrong, I'm very excited about this... in fact, between this and the Oculus Rift and other similar ventures I think we're on the cusp of some very exciting times for home simmers in the next 5 years
I'm not whining (at least I hope that's not how it's coming across)- I'm just stating what, to me, would make this a must-have.

I do think this is better tech, from a simming perspective, than OR for a number of reasons:
1- won't block out the external visuals,
2- it will integrate seamlessly with a physical 'pit, just put the retro-reflective material where you need a "screen"
3- a lot lighter than OR and other devices which incorporate the screen,
4- less likelihood of nausea since you still have external positioning cues.

I like that. "Enthusiasm" is so much easier to type than "frothing at the mouth, screeching fanboy". *laughs* (I never understood the whole "fanboy" thing until Jeri explained to me what castAR actually DID. I instantly understood (and became one) and had it reinforced (for the second time) that there's no way for a fully grown adult male to retain any dignity at all while giggling like a little girl.)

castAR ISN'T perfect, but it's as close as I've yet seen short of an eleventybillion dollar display system.

I'm going to support it with everything I've got because it IS that bloody important. I could easily see a future version of it sporting four pico projectors to enable a 190+ degree viewing experience.

To me it's worth it just for what it can bring to the table over a TrackIR rig - I HATE flying Warthunder while trying to keep my eyeballs locked to the damn screen while jittering my head all over. Makes me nuts.

g.

It looks like it will work as I suggested back when you first mentioned CastAR Gene. Screens looked pretty close to the head too.

Still a little concerned about peripheral vision, it could do with a large FOV to really work well.

Saying that, even as it is now, this is a god send for the full pit people
I can see why you are frothing at the mouth

For peripheral vision you can also get away with much lower resolution, and don't need to sync to the shutter glasses, since it will mostly fall out of the glasses edge/won't crosstalk with the other side. That said, getting another couple of projectors that won't weight a ton and be too bulky is a challenge, as well as getting all edges to match. Gene will probably shoot this idea down immediately, but it doesn't seem outside the capabilities of a lot of people here.

Without going that far, I'd be interested in what the nature of he tracking markers is. Specifically, could the glasses manage to track markers placed on gloves, possibly via the same methods used for the "magic wand"? Mind you, this would be useful for less glamorous VR research activities, not really for gaming or simulations.

Peripheral vision would be nice, but I'll wait until they get around to adding a designed-in solution for it.

My biggest problem right now is a guy that went, "Say friend, have you heard about this thing called Star Citizen" and I was lost. *sigh*

There may just be an Aurora flight deck in my future.

g.

Sixty degrees of horizontal field of vision is actually quite a lot. If I stretch my arms in front of me and place my hands about one meter apart (the closest thing I can readily arrange for a rough equilateral triangle with my head at one end of it), my nose nearly covers both hands. Sixty degrees should easily cover the whole range of vision with fine 3D perception, and I think that if anything "worth of interest" were to be anywhere outside this range you would instinctively move your head to track it. So it might be enough to use a single projector with a low resolution image split in two beams on the sides of the range covered by the CastAR glasses to get an impression of full immersion.

Final KickStarter tally: $1,052,110!!

I would've loved to contribute but all funds tied up at the moment. Will definitely get this down the road though, as it seems to fit better than Oculus Rift for my needs.