Today AR headset manufacturer Combine Reality revealed the CR Deck Mk.1, an open source AR headset based on Project North Star that utilizes Ultraleap hand-tracking. A Kickstarter campaign is coming soon.
Details are scarce so far, but Combine Reality unveiled images and short video clips of the new AR headset on Twitter. Utilizing the open source Project North Star program and Ultraleap’s hand-tracking, it aims to deliver an accessible development kit for AR developers that’s “easily remixable with off-the-shelf components & modules” according to the announcement tweet.
On the official Combine Reality website, it states this will be based on Project North Star, which is:
“An open-source, community-driven AR hardware platform with Unity and SteamVR integration, built around the world’s most advance optical hand-tracking technology. Featuring brilliant 1440x1600px per eye displays at up to 120Hz.”
Combine Reality also showed colorized teaser images of a CR Deck Mk.2 prototype that are purely just sketches, not even actual renders, with an embedded Intel Real Sense SLAM module. Reportedly it’ll be included in some capacity in the upcoming Kickstarter campaign as well.
That’s everything we know right now. For more specs and details on the construction of the headset, check out this development blog.
If you want to learn more you can sign up for a newsletter that will let you know once the Kickstarter campaign goes live on the site’s home page. The campaign appears to be for an “injection molded version of the Project North Star headset” that will bypass the need for 3D printing. They’ve also got details on how you can build your own Project North Star headset using from Smart Prototyping. The About Us page mentions it’s possible
