Writing a technical book... Any ideas/suggestions/photos

[simonb]

Hi all,

I have just received a publishing agreement from an UK technical publisher to write a book of approx 200 pages on the use of Lasers in Entertainment. I am happy with the technical aspects of Multi-watt RGB projectors. Safety will be a prominent chapter. I have some help from the UK Health Protection Agency to review my work in this key area. I anticipate some difficulty here; with international standards, MPEL limits & the single pulse versus Multi-pulsed MPE, calculating scanning parameters & the whole audience scanning debate (although as a UK book, this may be less restrictive as it would be in the USA, or Sweden where I thought audience scanning is not permitted). This will be the most important chapter & the hardest one to write. Only the other day I read a horror story where some unfortunate teenager powered up a Casio projector type blue laser diode at about a watt of optical power, balancing the laser on a chair; it rolled away & he got the entire unspread beam in one eye, without any safety goggles, causing loss of vision & 'red' in his vision, which I guess would be a bleeding retina. I hope he is ok, but I fear such injuries can be permanent.

I need to keep maths to a minimum, just enough to work out max exposure equations, beam area, irradiance etc. I am establishing the scope with my publisher at the moment.

I plan to cover the basic physics of laser, history of LaserShows such as The Who concerts to date, the components used (that is laser modules, white light gas lasers, solid state/DPSS, PCAOMs, dichroic beam combining/alignment issues, beam correction, TEC temperature stab, diode drivers, galvanometers, DACs & control software). I plan to include schemes to self-build a 1 to 2W RGB projector along ILDA specifications.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what I should include? I have tried to get visibility of a book written a while ago; Laser Fx, but I cannot seem to find it anywhere. I am also looking for photos that I can include, especially a front cover. The only laser I still have in my lab at the mo is an older 100mW DPSS, which does not exactly look like multiwatt HardBass lasershows!

My background is in Spectra-Physics/Coherent 4 to 20W Argon gas lasers & Defence Electronics (military IR countermeasures, laser target designation), with a Masters Degree backed up with 25 years real world experience in electronic design & development.

Any ideas on what to cover, what to avoid, what to over-stress would be really useful; other people's perspective is most welcome!

Many thanks,

Simon Bond.

[dsli_jon]

heh, nice...

..I plan to cover..history of LaserShows..Does anyone have any ideas as to what I should include?

...I am also looking for photos that I can include, especially a front cover.

I can help you with a decent-chunk of 'early-history', at least as-to one of the 'keystones' of Laser-entertainment.. http://www.laserium.com/ If you ask real-nice, I might even be able to get you a call / interview with the founder Sir Ivan... And, as-to 'cover shots'.. uh.. I've got 'a few' we might propose for consideration... http://www.laserium.com/gallery/index.html etc...

I do hope this isn't an 'urgent project', cause I am *extremely* overstaturated with work-responsabilities, at the moment, but I'd love to contribute, where-possible.. I'd also heartily-suggest you hook-up with Steve Roberts (mixedgas) and Bob Hess ('Eidetic') for some of the 'early-tech' tie-ins..

You'll also thrill to hear stories from Steve Jander (Photonbeam) who used to do lasers for Zeppelin Brian Wirthlin, (laserist) who saw much-action thru the decades / was a Laserium-laserist for many years, and Pat Bishoff, (Laserman532) the Man who pioneered the use of the 'KTP' system (aka 'Laserscope' which was a specific-brand for the med-industry..) for Entertainment / Shows... and.. actually - imo, He's got the 'grandaddy' of all-time-coolest / perfect cover-shots -
http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...9&d=1199508062 - ...Though, not sure what the 're-pub rights' might be like, ...but, he can let ya know...

Only 'counter-thought' is, if you actually-plan to cover all that you mentioned, unless a good-majority will be rather 'top-level' / not too-deep, and if you also-plan to cover 'schemes to self-build a 1 to 2W RGB', including info on MPE-calcs and theory-behind the regs / safety etc, etc.... I think you're gonna blow-away 200 pages, m8.. Unless, again, much of it is 'surface-level'... I think what you're proposing-covering could easily-be like a '4-volume set', imo.. Not a 'criticism', just an observation...

Anyhoo.. I gotta jet so... shoot me a PM if yer interested in 'talking with Ivan', after gleaning what you can from the Laserium-site, and I'll see what I can do...
cheers..
j

[dnar]

The PL wiki is a good source of info too.

http://www.photonlexicon.com/wiki/in...itle=Main_Page

[mixedgas]

I have a copy of Laser-FX the light show handbook. Its hand printed on a bidirection archival grade laser printer on acide free paper and was sent out to be bound. I watched my copy being printed. However it does NOT travel.
If you'd like to peruse it, you'll need to come to the states. I'll try to bring it to SELEM.

I reccomend you quote chapter 2 in its entire glory of one page.

Quote:

Can you make money doing Laser Shows?

NO.

End Quote.

Steve