Projector Positioning

Positioning Overview

A projectior’s physical location in a space is specified by someone who understands throw ratio and someone who understands physical limitations of a space. That could be you! In most cases, you can get a rough projector positioning using a generic or brand specific projection calculator. If you have a more complex situation, or you’re the type of person who just likes to make sure, you can calculate this yourself fairly easily. 

Understanding Projector Lens Types and Projector Math is critical to understanding where a projector can go. You can learn to draw a frustum to figure out, or you can use formulas on their own, or (my personal recommendation), is a combination of both. 

Projector positioning is based on a projector’s frustum, which is the light cone that is emitted from a lens. You can build a frustum in 2D space and do a top view and a side view to manually calculate your projector body position. 

I did this in Adobe Illustrator for 10 years before I moved into 3D space. It makes a huge difference. I use Vectorworks, which has a projector tool, but it is limited and working from scratch is a good way to learn anyway.