In the future, virtual reality won't require strapping a bulky contraption to your head.

Instead, imagine stepping into an empty room and then suddenly seeing life-size, 3-D images of people and furniture. Or looking down at a smartwatch and seeing virtual objects float and bounce above the wrist, like the holographic Princess Leia beamed by R2-D2 in the movie "Star Wars."

A key to this future may lay in Carlsbad, Calif., where startup Ostendo Technologies Inc. has spent the past nine years quietly working on miniature projectors designed to emit crisp videos and glasses-free 3-D images for smartphones and giant screens.

Other companies have shown they can project floating images that appear to be holograms, but many involve large machines employing a system of mirrors to direct light with limited viewing angles. For instance, the lifelike image of the late rapper Tupac Shakur, which graced the Coachella music festival stage in 2012, was a combination of computer graphics and video projection that relied on visual effects first designed in the 19th century.

Ostendo's projectors, in contrast, are roughly the size of Tic Tacs, powered by a computer chip that can control the color, brightness and angle of each beam of light across one million pixels.