Project Northstar
The future of spatial computing deserves to be open.
Last updated
The future of spatial computing deserves to be open.
Last updated
We envision a future where the physical and virtual worlds blends together into a single magical experience. At the heart of this experience is hand tracking, which unlocks interactions uniquely suited to virtual and augmented reality. To explore the boundaries of interactive design in AR, we created and open sourced Project North Star, which drove us to push beyond the limitations of existing systems." -Leap Motion
Project North Star is an open-source Augmented Reality headset originally designed by LeapMotion (now UltraLeap) in June 2018. The project has had many variations since its inception, by both UltraLeap and the open-source community. Some of the variations are documented and linked to here but visit the discord server for more to-the-moment information. The headset is almost entirely 3D printable, with a handful of components like reflectors, circuit boards, cables, sensors, and screws that need to be sourced separately.
Project North Star at MIT Reality Hack 2020, photo credit: Matthew Daiter
There's also a large community of Northstar developers and builders on Discord, you can join the server and share your build, ask questions, or get help with your projects by joining the server
For a more detailed look into the project, checkout our General FAQ, or Mechanical pages.
Project North Star has seen its fair share of revisions and updates since the original open-source files were released. To clear up any ambiguity from the outset, Release 1 was an internal release. Release 2, the first public open-source release (sometimes referred to as the initial release), was in 2018. Release 3 came in 2019 and improved on the mechanical design in many ways. The Deck X innovated on this and provided an integrated circuit board to reduce cables from the headset to just two, (USB 3 / mini-DP), by combining USB devices into a custom-built USB hub + Arduino module. As shown from the table below, the newly released Northstar Next is probably what new users will want to start with, it has an emphasis on modularity and affordability.
Active
06 JUN 2023
CombineReality
XR50 / T261
SIR 170
BoboVR
Custom
Active
21 AUG 2020
CombineReality
T261
LMC / SIR 170
3.1
3.2
Release 3-2
In Dev.
TBD
Leap Motion
T265
LMC
3.2
3.2
Outdated
03 APR 2019
Leap Motion
T265
LMC
3.1
3.1
Outdated
23 JAN 2019
Leap Motion
T265
LMC
3
3
Release 2
Outdated
6 JUN 2018
Leap Motion
N/A
LMC
1
1
