Newest game: Laseroids

[heroic]

Been playing with transparent screens. Laseroids looks awesome floating in free space!

Admittedly it's a cheat (scrims from Ikea...)

[carmangary]

What's this IKEA scrim thing? There is an IKEA near me so I'd like to check one out. What section of the store would it be in? What does it look like? Thanks.

[heroic]

What's this IKEA scrim thing? There is an IKEA near me so I'd like to check one out. What section of the store would it be in? What does it look like? Thanks.

They're in the section with all the curtains, and they are white netting fabric rectangles about 10ft by 8ft or so. I think they're about two for a tenner. I bought a whole bunch of them a while back.

They're made of polyester monofilament, which means that they are highly transmissive; my laser goes through two layers of them without dimming appreciably!

Here's another video which I made for my Burning Man crew: youtubez

[James Lehman]

Just about any fabric store has this kind of stuff on bolts, cut to any length you want.

James.

[carmangary]

I guess I should get in touch with my feminine side and head out to the fabric store.

[heroic]

Just about any fabric store has this kind of stuff on bolts, cut to any length you want.

This is true, but the Ikea ones are hemmed so they won't fray.

[James Lehman]

That's a good point. This stuff unravels very easily. I got some once because I knew it was 100% polyester, so I knew I could put it in an oven up to about 300° F.

James.

[Dr Laser]

Hey I put my femme makeup and go to fabric stores all the time
And yeah I'm buying a lot of spandex.

[buffo]

I've had great luck using "no-see-um" mosquito netting from "Skeeta" down in Tampa, Florida. They do custom sewing, and they're really cheap. I paid like $28 (including priority mail shipping) for a 9 ft square piece.

The stuff works great. It's damn near invisible in a dark room, yet the laser will show up really well. (Plus you can see right through it, so you can see the beams coming from the projector.) It's also pretty durable. Have them sew pockets in the top and bottom, and then suspend it from a rod at the top like a curtian. Put a rod through the bottom pocket to weight it down and hold it tight, and you're all set.

dsli_Jon was the one that first recommended this stuff. He's been using it for years at outdoor shows. I haven't set it up outside yet, but I've done maybe a half-dozen indoor shows for friends in everything from a bedroom, to a large living room, to a hotel room, to a large garage, and each time it's been *awesome*. If you look at the videos on my ustream.tv page, you'll see the scrim set up in some of them. (The FLEM Mark II videos also show the scrim.)

The best color to use is the "slate gray" color. The white is way to visible, even with the lights off, and the black is actually too dark! You can see the black square in the darkness. So if you order some of this stuff, be sure you get the slate color. (Also, make sure you get the smaller "no-see-um" netting, not the regular mosquito netting.)

Adam

[heroic]

The best color to use is the "slate gray" color. The white is way to visible, even with the lights off, and the black is actually too dark! You can see the black square in the darkness. So if you order some of this stuff, be sure you get the slate color.
Adam

That sounds like a great tip- I'll have to check that out. I had problems with ordinary net curtain material too, but the Ikea things (which, it transpires, go by the suitably Ikea-ish name "Lill") are much thinner and lighter than that, so they don't really show up too much in a dark room. I generally aim to be projecting enough light through them that their slight visibility doesn't pose a big problem.