Ex-Valve designer launches AR glasses Kickstarter

Former head of Valve’s hardware division, Jeri Ellsworth, has launched a Kickstarter campaign for the CastAR project – augmented reality glasses.

The existence of the CastAR project emerged following the firing of a number of Valve employees in February 2013, with two Valve employees, Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson, a former programmer at the company, revealing that they had been working on CastAR and planned to take it further.

The campaign is looking for $400,000 in funding, with the team already racking up over $250,500 thanks to some generous backers.

The campaign also gives some more details and specifics on what the glasses will be capable of.

“castAR is a projected augmented reality system that displays holographic-like 3D projections right in front of you. Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope sparked our imaginations of what might be possible in the future by showing R2-D2 and Chewbacca playing a holographic 3D chess-style game. It has taken nearly 35 years since the film was released for this technological dream to come to reality, but with castAR, that reality can be yours,” says the Kickstarter page.

“castAR’s projected augmented reality system is comprised of two main components: a pair of glasses and a surface. The frames of the glasses contain two micro-projectors—one for each eye. Each projector casts a perspective view of a stereoscopic 3D image onto the surface. Your eyes focus on this projected image at a very natural and comfortable viewing distance. A tiny camera in-between the projectors scans for infrared identification markers placed on the surface. The camera uses these markers to precisely track your head position and orientation in the physical world, enabling the software to accurately adjust how the holographic scene should appear to you.”

The campaign still has 30 days to go, which makes the goal of hitting $400,000 very likely.