So recently I have been working a bit more on my 3DS to ilda converter software and have noticed in this and in quite a few other softwares (such as LazyMame) that the ability to project 60,90, or 120kpps would be quite beneficial to the graphical presentation.
I thought some today about ways to improve laser graphics projection speed but as everyone who has written optimization software knows, there are limits to the galvo speed based on physics principles that cannot be overcome without exponentially rising costs. If the scan speed could be increased with linear rising costs and high extensibility it would be a great benefit for detailed graphics projection.
A relatively straightforward solution to the scan rate limitation problem is to use two or more closely positioned galvo pairs and to feed each galvo pair a subset of the total point 'work' of the frame. The galvos would have a parallax offset that could be set in software on a computer or on a parallel galvo driving control board based on the distance between the galvos and the distance to the projection screen. Parallels of this concept can be found in many industries such as the computing industry and graphics card industry.
What would be required is software to choose the points to split up and create 'subset frames' for each galvo, plus the parallax offset and other geometrical correction as necessary. This software could be run on a computer or on a dedicated multi-galvo driving card that could be fed whole frames and it would split them out as necessary. In the case that the software runs on a computer, it could be in the form of a driver such that the show software does not need to know that it is there, the show software just thinks it is spitting out frames at 60 or 120kpps and the driver performs calculations to split the frame up, perform geometric corrections, and feed it to multiple DACs. In this way the concept would be compatible with much existing software such as HE-laserscan, LDS, zoofgames, Lazymame etc, only the software must have the capability to produce such high pps frames. It is possible that the show playing software could have this functionality built into itself and could make galvo splitting decisions based on the additional frame information that it has access to. An additional benefit is that the projectr would be able to produce frames twice, 3x, 4x or more than what is capable given any existing or future glavo technology.
In high power laser projectors, often times multiple lasers of one color are combined before being passed through a dichroic mirror to add to the main beam before being scanned. In a setup such as the one described here, the lasers would not be combined, but fed to two or more galvos. In the case of one laser per color, a beamsplitter could be used to feed the separate galvos but a method of independantly modulating the beams such as PCAOM must be used for each galvo. With these methods many combinations of sources and scanners could be devised.
I've talked enough you get the idea. It wouldn't be hard to write up a dual projector driver for EzAudDac cards as a proof of concept.
What do you think? Old news that I just haven't heard of yet?