Table improvements

Recently I purchased a new projector as part of the plan to make a clean, professional and ultimately marketable product. The new projector has a ridiculously short throw distance for a forward facing projector (traditional lenses in front type).

The purchase of the projector is exciting because, in the end, I'm a technophile. But in all project related seriousness. This new kit is vastly reducing the required height of my table design. While not the slim line concept we'll be seeing in the not so distant future. it is small enough in depth from surface that the large screen can be placed easily inside of most table top type setups; i.e. coffee table, work desk, formal table.

Anyway, as I finalize my design, as always, I'll post more data!

Images!

To go along with my recent video post. Here are some diagrams I whipped up in Lightwave.  The only thing not listed in these diagrams are mirror angles (these are mock-ups) and camera placements.  I'm currently running two PS3Eye cams on either side of the bottom mirror.  This configuration is pending more work on the object recognition side of the table.

 Enjoy.

Videos!

Some new developments

I've been quite for a while due to spending my time working on running the game this table was conceived of to support.  Now that we're moving along and I'm planned far enough ahead that I have some down time, I've returned to the table design work and began the process of looking for a housing.

Recently, I attended PAXE.  While at this wondrous if not line ridden event, I encountered a company which specializes in making furniture for gamers.  I've since begun a dialog with them to create a housing for my large format MT table.  Due to this recent development I'm going to be mum for a bit as I work out the legal details of what might be a business deal for making more of these toys.

So enough about that for now.  Here's the tech developments from the last 24 hours of work. 

1. Reconfigured my mirror array using a front surface mirror acquired from an old projection TV.  This new configuration resolves a fair amount of the screen "blur" (ghosting) which was there with the plexi-rear faced mirror.
2. Adjusted placement of the mirror and projector slightly to maximize the total display dimension.  I've not got a solid 46" diagonal 16:9 screen showing 100% horizontally and 98% vertically.  This means there is some cut off of the desktop environment in the vertical direction.
3. Tested fiducial with CCV 1.2 (fiducial) using two PS3 Eye cams and 3.6 mm lenses.  This worked out quite well.  I was able to track positive images (white background with black lines) but not negative images.  Interesting.  The downside to this test was the loss of a fair amount of screen real-estate.  The 3.6m lenses lead to loss of approx. 4" from the perimeter of the screen.  For a taller build this wouldn't be a problem as the cameras could be lower, but with my coffee table and projector choose it is not possible to diminish the screen size any more then I have.  
4. Swapping the 3.6mm lenses for my 2.1mm lenses without moving the camera bodies actually resolved my stitching problem!  With the new placement I now have full screen touch from corner to shiny corner!
5. Shot some video of RPTools and Fiducials in action.  I'll be posting this video as soon as I get a chance to compress it into a reasonable size for sharing (from an HD camera).