Today I’ve been thinking about how the acrylic should be housed inside the table frame. The problem with this is that, at this point, I don’t have my LCD matrix yet so I’m not sure on it’s properties (and hence on the way it should be mounted).
The second problem is that I’m still fiddling around with a compliant surface, and I really would love to experience with the laser approach I mentioned in earlier posts (click). More and more succesful tests are being conducted, and the lasers really look like they have a lot of potential.
So, in the design I made for now in SketchUP (getting slightly better at it now), I’ve left the matrix out for now, and I came up with a good place for the optional lasers.
(Please click for the fullsize version)
The acrylic isn’t actually in the drawing, but it will rest in the bottom part, as I’ve also noted on the design. The lasers and lenses will be mounted on the second part, so that they’re close to the surface, yet the lasers can’t escape on the side (the IR light is dangerous to your eyes; I don’t want to blind any users, since that would probably affect my grade for the worse). Then on the top I’ll have the metal cover (“traanplaat” in Dutch, I’m not sure what the English term is; Google tranlator couldn’t help me on that one) that you’ve seen in my previous sketch.
Hopefully I can get the materials for this somewhere this week, together with some old CD-ROM readers so I can play around with the lasers.
More will follow soon.
