The story so far

A year ago I started the process of building a DI rig roughly 18"x12".  Nothing every came of this setup.  I tried to build my own illuminators and found that soldering is less fun after the 100th LED.  Especially when it's the placement of that 100th LED which burns out the previous 99.  Rather then invest in a better soldering gun and setting up sort of staging holding rig for the LED's I started the stalling/planning stage of project two.

My next build was a 19"x24" free standing screen using IR Pens crafted loving from old stinky Expo I markers.  This build was great for testing as well as for use as a drafting table in my shop.  I still use the pens as well.

This screen is made up of the following layers:

=======  1/8" Acrylic

-------  Rosco Grey

=======  3/4" Acrylic (buffed and polished for future FTIR use)

Testing the screen without projection met with much success!

Percission was somewhat lacking due to the cheap webcam I was using.  This wasn't the end of the world however as it was a proof of concept.

Then I added projection.  At the time I had (have) an old Sony LCD projector with a _huge_ (read Long) throw distance.  This was nice for projecting 100"+ art installations.  However, it required most of my shop and a large spinning mirror to vaporize... err.. wait, wrong project.  The throw distance requirement was extremely disheartening.  A quick search for front face mirrors led me to the purchase of some mylar-like mirror stuffs.  Very nice, have used in other projects since.  However, I've yet to use it as an actual mirror due to the difficult in stretching the material in such a way as to get a truly flat mirror.  To the credit of the material, I have not tried the clamp method the vendor suggested simply because it would add unacceptable additional size to the projects foot print.  Certainly not usable for a coffee table design.

As a result this table has become a fixture of the basement/shop's space. It's fate is still undetermined.

The difficulties with the Mirrors led me to a bit of a slump.  I still talked about the project and still puttered with it yet I made no real progress.

Finally, this past December (2009), my wife who has been very supportive of the project (read expensive hobby) thus far and perhaps was tired of seeing me moping around, presented me with a flexible budget and a reel of IR ribbon.  Thus was born the coffee table gaming surface which I've begun to create in earnest.

 Price       Product
------------------------------------------------------------------

$240.00  --  1 Spool of 850nm IR Ribbon + powersupply from
               Environmental Lighting
$230.00  --  1 pc. 43"x24" Endlighten Acrylic
$840.00  --  1 Projector, InFocus XS1 Moderate-Short-Throw
               projector 2'2" for a 49" diag according to
               projectorcentral.com
 $20.00  --  1 Gigaware (Radio Shack) WebCam
 $50.00  --  1 Roscoe Grey (oops, I'll get back to that)
  $2.50  --  1 roll of foil tape
  $8.50  --  2 L shaped aluminum 'bars' from Home Depot
-------  --  1 Pile of Scrap wood

Through all of this the nuigroup has been immensely helpful!