Complete Guide: How to Install a House Mapping Projector

Projection mapping is a captivating way to transform an ordinary house into a show stopping into visual displays. Whether you're planning a holiday light show, a Halloween spectacle, or a digital art installation, projection mapping can turn your home into a canvas of light and motion. This guide walks you through the four steps to set up a house mapping projector in your front yard.

The first step is to figure out how much space you have to work with to execute your house map. The fastest and easiest ways is to walk off the distance or use a long tape measure. But there are some nice tech tools you can use to measure your house and yard like Google Earth or Texas A&M University’s “Map my Ranch” that enable you to measure key distances from overhead satellite images. Here’s what you need to know before you setup your projector:

• How tall and wide is your house
• How deep is your front yard

For a single short throw BenQ house mapping projector, the table below is a good guideline on how much space you’ll need for a common suburban home size and front yard. If you have a wider home or don’t have a yard deep enough to reach both sides of your home, you can use multiple projectors and blend them together.

While you’re measuring – try to take an inventory of any potential problems such as a big tree or other potential blockages that you’ll have to accommodate into your setup.

To properly map your house, you need to make sure the projector covers the entire house with light. So, once it gets dark enough to see a projected image on the house, turn on the projector and select the “test pattern” from the projector MENU.  Then walk back far enough while holding the projector until the grid covers the entire house.  If you can keep the projector centered on the house, this is the best, but the BenQ projectors have twice the amount of keystone and image adjustment tools compared to a classroom projector, which makes it correct the image for any off-center location where you may need to tilt the projector.

Unless your setup is only for one night, you’ll want to make sure you have a weatherproof box to protect your projector. While the BenQ latest house mapping projectors all have IP5X dustproof laser engines that can withstand dirty air, they are not waterproof. So, you’ll need to make sure the unit is protected from rain, dew, and when the sprinklers turn on in your yard.

Once you have your ideal location, you will need to run power cables to the projector enclosure with a weatherproof extension cord. Next you will want to secure the enclosure from wind and theft using ground anchors. These are available online or at local hardware stores and can be installed in seconds with a power drill that drives the anchor deep into the ground. These anchors can also be used with cable locks to secure the projector and enclosure.

Most home house mapping setups require the projector to be elevated above the ground to reduce any shadows from porch overhangs and enable a downward tilt of the projector to reach the lower parts of the house. Weatherproof projector enclosures can be mounted on top of tall ground anchors, small tables, crates, bricks, and poles.

This is where the magic happens—designing the images and video element that align perfectly with your house details. Once the projector is setup to where it lights up your house and secured so it won’t move, then you can use your projection mapping software to “map” or define the key elements of your house doors, windows, porches, and railings.  You want to make sure that the software properly aligns the image so that when it turns your porch railing posts into giant candy canes, the red and white stripes don’t spill over into the wall behind it that supposed to be made of gingerbread. Once you have the house elements aligned, the software will turn off any pixels that aren’t needed outside of your house, enhancing the realism of the projection map.

Once your house has been mapped, you can use your software to apply a scene to your house.  There are a lot of different programs to use, such as illumiBot, Adobe After Effects, AtmosFX, and others that enable you to build a show on your map.  You can also combine some of these programs together, such as using AtmosFX effects in a illumiBot AI generated scene.  Once you have your house mapped, you can create new scenes for different holidays or events, such as your favorite college football team rival week.

Using a projector can deliver a more compelling visual than traditional passive lighting, but if you’ve never worked with a projector before it can be a little intimidating.  With a BenQ house mapping projector, you can light up almost any typical suburban house with a single projector with color so accurate, it looks like it’s real. We  You can check out the latest projectors available here.