Filling a room with light was a key part of this idea, so to see how it would work I borrowed a projector and collected an array of shiny thing and waited for night.
(I also created a few mock ups of circular projections, including running some imagery through a polar displacement filter so the unwrapping would work when reflected off the sphere.
The results were ok (just) the room was filled with the light of the projector (with a half spherical chrome lamp shade) I did manage to get my horizon around the walls, but the quality of the light was low. I had some quite nice bumpy artefacts from the imperfections of the chrome, but i did like this texture. The main problem was the lack brightness. I guess light is a bit like paint the projector gives enough for a couple of square metres, but I was spreading out over about 100.
The image was also lost a bit due to my not white walls, the ceiling was ok, and too many windows and furniture made it harder to pick out all the details.
A bit of disappointment but not all was lost,
If I have white walls it would be better.
My room was quite large, with high sloping ceiling, so this should be better.
I don’t need sharp imagers, vague bloby colours would be ok.
I will need to make sure the contrast is pretty high.
It still could work, just might have to lower my expectations a little.
A stainless steel saucepan lid reflects to a much smaller space and filled a good chunk of the ceiling, the kids and I had a great time turning the roof in to a giant interactive lava lamp.