CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[WanMan]

http://www.hackaday.com/2007/11/15/automatic-projector-calibration/

Watch the YouTube video

[Zebu Fellenz]

That was awesome

[WanMan]

It would be funny if Microsoft hired him to include his bit in MCE

[Moose]

Wowwwwww - I want this. Probably won't be able to afford it, if it ever becomes a product.

[ecrabb]

Man, that's very cool. When digital projectors have a so many pixels that you can afford to throw away resolution, technology like this will be awesome. Imagine a few magnetic or vacuum-type pucks that you could simply stick at the corners of your "screen" on any old surface... That would talk to the projector (or projectorS!!!) wirelessly to do accomplish perfect geometry - in a few seconds. Wow.

SC

[perisoft]

You wouldn't want his, because he's not calibrating a projector, if I understand correctly (didn't actually watch the vid, but it was a digital projector and that limits the options) but making a big-arse lookup table through which image data gets manipulated.

With a digital, that will look like ass because of the discrete pixels. With a CRT PJ, you could drive it to very high resolution and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two kinds of output. However, it wouldn't help you project on an uneven surface due to focus issues.

That said, it would be relatively easy to whip up a directX interface and calibrator which would converge and geometry correct a CRT projector given a DSLR mounted right near the lenses. You could also use it to calibrate colors, adjust for alterations in screen gain across the surface, etc.

With a high enough quality camera running at a fast enough rate, you could make people invisible when they walked in front of the screen, at least from the perspective of one or two viewers.

There's no rocket science in any of this, it's mainly having the time and equipment to have a go. If anybody wants one I could probably do it for a few K plus equipment.

The biggest negative would be that to avoid odd looking jaggies you'd have to drive the PJ over its 'sweet spot' resolution because there will always be single-pixel errors with the convergence, so the single pixels have to be nonvisible. Still, basically you'd set to maximize raster area correctly, run focus / astig on each tube separately as normal, and then BANG it would calibrate and converge.

Of course, you'd have no particular reason other than arrogance to believe I could actually do it, but that's another issue.

The BETTER way to do it would be to use a very high res aimable & zoomable webcam, some a priori knowledge of setting up a PJ, and control the projector's electronics to do it, kind of like IRIS does on the Barcos, except do a good job of it. I'm not sure how much that would cost. Hardware would be dirt cheap, though, so you could sell it for a few hundred when you got done. That I *know* I could do, it's just blood sweat and tears.

[David_Web]

"I know some home theater nuts that would love to have this system for calibrating their CRT projectors."

Eh no thanks! This is even worse than using keystone on a digital.
Unless it can interface directly with the pj which is the point not to.

It's cool none the less. And cheap. Should be very simple to make something like that. Then a simple software that does some calculations and then output it with opengl or maybe vvvv which would be even simpler.

[cmjohnson]

Impressive. And with further development, it could really turn into a heck of a system. Imagine a CRT PJ with a development of
that system connected to it that will FULLY converge and geometrically correct your PJ in about two seconds, and at the highest
possible resolution.

You'd still have to do a decent job at mechanical setup and magnetic setup, in order to get the most out of the PJ's capacity, but
with that done, a system like that would be a major convenience factor.

I'd like to see that system turned into a new ACON card for a Marquee, along with a new ACON camera. it'd be a sweet setup.

CJ

[Stonefool]

I think it would be real nice. But for real world issue this would mean that they could utilize _all_ pixels on the "panel/s" to display in any given angle, which would mean som really nice and advanced lens assembly to manipulate via a processor.

[jask]

[Gino]

if only they could make blending so easy