Projection mapping onto real surfaces

This module builds toward the signature move of live visuals outside the club-standard LED wall: making light belong to a real object. Whether you are dressing a stage prop for an audiovisual set, wrapping a column in a gallery, or animating a corner of a warehouse at a DIY show, the craft is the same — understand what projection mapping actually is, pick a tool tier that matches your budget and appetite for code, physically fit a projector to the room, then bend the image until it sits on the surface’s geometry.

The arc starts supported and flat. First, get the projector recognised as an extended (not mirrored) display so the interface and output live on separate screens — a step that silently breaks everything when skipped. Then land a rectangle of light squarely on a wall using corner-pin’s four draggable handles, checking that the projector’s throw actually fits the room’s depth and target size. Only then move to the unsupported capstone: a non-flat object, where corner-pin gets you close and the mesh editor’s grid of control points wraps the image around the curve. The atom on surfaces beyond the flat screen — bodies, smoke, water, architecture — reframes the final documentation step: your choice of object is compositional, not incidental.

Every required atom gates the capstone directly: the definition sets the alignment standard, tool tiers and display setup make the rig run, throw and the two warping techniques produce the fit, and the surface-as-composition concept drives the documented surface choice. The supporting atoms enrich rather than gate — expanded cinema gives the historical lineage of breaking the frame, and media facades show the neighbouring lane where LEDs, not projectors, turn architecture into the display.