Projection and Fog Screen

Today we were due to have a few woodworking classes and possibly begin production of our presentation space, however we've hit our first snag.

We're having difficulties figuring out the best projection solution.

We've narrowed it down to a few options :

- Spot Projection or mirrors
- Skewing
- Or projecting onto a wall, instead of a roof ( final compromise ).

We met up with Ann, our lecturer after fiddling around with a projector for a while trying to figure out the best position, and we realised to get an image of a decent size with a regular projector - the projector itself has to be a minimum of 3 metres away from the wall. 2 metres was bareable, and 1 metre was appaulingly small.

We know it's impossible to contain our whole project into a 2x2x2m space, But even with the rooms we're presenting in, they have 3m high ceilings, which are not nearly high enough for standard projection.

So we have to turn to other options.

One of the options would be to use a standard projector, but place it higher up, and on an angle so the image is projected at a larger size, but is distorted. We could then modify the image on the projector itself. ( They have facilities to modify and skew an image so that it fits on the screen properly ).

The second option would be to use a 'spot projector'. Which have mirrors incased in the projector that alow it to produce a large image at a very close distance. Apparently our other campus, St Lucia has one of these projectors that we might be able to borrow for our presentation - which would greatly assist us.

Bonnie also had the idea of simply using mirrors to duplicate the effects of the spot projector. Will submit a possible diagram on how this might work a little later.

The other option open to us, would be to simply project onto a wall, instead of proejecting onto a roof. The effect wouldn't be the same, but at least we can show how it would look.

I've also got to do some research into fog screens. Wether or not we will be able to get our hands on one, or if we will have to built it ourselves. Im going to send an email to the folks over at http://www.fogscreen.com and get a quote for buying / rental of a fog screen. As well as seeing if it can run horizontally as well as vertically.

We also got a 4th group memeber today. So we're now a larger group.

Currently we're just in the heavy research phase. Trying to find out as much as we can, the limitations of the technology we've got on hand, as well as the possible options for implementation that are open to us.

- Anthony

Metaballs

Trying to figure out possible coding implementations.

Will add more later.

For my own reference :

http://www.quasimondo.com/archives/000562.php
and
http://oos.moxiecode.com/flash8/metaballs_f8.html

- Anthony