Interesting Usage of Light

Light projection creates immersive experience. Watch these videos, see how cool and fun light can be!
First video features animated characters invade a gallery. Another video featuring the world’s smallest chef preparing delicious dessert.

So, what is the physics behind watching the projected animation? The character’s image on the screen is a real image. Light rays shine onto the wall or backdrop to produce the image we see as a moving picture. But how is such a big, clear, and moving image produced?

A projector is an tool used to produce a large image of a small object. The slide of the small object is placed behind the projector lens outside its focal length and is illuminated but a small but powerful source of light.

The amount of light from the source actually going through the transparent slide or film is increased by using a condenser and a concave mirror. The slide must be put into the projector upside down to give an image on the screen which is the right way up.

In this modern days, we uses digital video instead of slide for projection. The digital video is projected using either a micro-mirror projector or a liquid crystal display (LCD) projector. A micro-mirror projector uses millions of microscopic mirrors to form the images that we see on the backdrop or screen. This technology still uses a very bright source, which is to shine light through a prism that splits it up into color beams. The color beams are reflected off the tiny mirrors, which turn on and off in response to the video signals. It still relies on light and mirrors. Some things just never change. Same for LCD projector. A very bright light is reflected off a mirror that has an LCD on it. In response to the video signal, the crystals let some of the light through and block some of it. Though these technologies are newer, they retain some of the original ideas/principle of light and projector.