I know there are some other posts about using big video-film type stuff, but I didn't see anything exactly like this, so I thought I'd post....
Thin-vilm video wallpaper is applied to the wall of the room. The image on the wallpaper is fed from a camera, or series of cameras, mounted on the outside of your house, pointing toward the yard. Now, put this wallpaper everywhere...
Voila, disappearing walls. The perspective wouldn't be right until this could be done in 3-d...
Nightvision cameras would allow viewing at night. Hear a noise in the backyard? Turn on the wall.
Naturally, anything could be projected on them.-- turner, Sep 21 2001 Les Nesmann http://www.photodud...ives/00000052.shtml"Who is Les Nessman and why would he be on board for this?", you ask. [jutta, Sep 21 2001] Electrochromatic Glass http://www.howstuff...om/smart-window.htmMuch easier. [Worldgineer, Oct 17 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004] Yeah, if you posit big 3-D video film type stuff, you can do all sorts of neat things. Invisible walls, invisible cars, invisible houses, invisible whatever. It's certainly an old sci-fi trick, though I think image alignment is quite a bit more difficult than they make out.-- egnor, Sep 22 2001 perspective is the real problem, with cameras and displays the image would only look right from a single point in the room. How about mixing clear glass with colour lcd and one way mirror so to see outside you just turn off the display.-- darndog, Sep 25 2001 Les Nessman would definitely be on board for this...poor guy.-- ArtVandelay, Sep 25 2001 I have this in my house - but I call them 'windows'.-- benfrost, Oct 02 2001 San Francisco MOMA a few years ago had a GREAT version of this. At one end of a great long hallway you look at the other end, thorugh 2 or 3 doorways. YOu see 2 gigantic panes of glass, floor to ceiling, in the last room. As you walk closer, it's still fairly amazing to see these 2 gigantic panes of glass, floor to ceiling, jutting out from opposite corners and almost meeting in the middle of the room, but with JUST enough space between the edges to walk through. But when you finally get there, it's not glass at all. There's NOTHING there...just green ribbon (the color of the sides of tempered glass!), running along the floor from the center of the room, up the corner of the wall, across the ceiling, and pulled taut down to meet the other end of the ribbon. Very convincing, even up close. People would almost always walk through the space in the middle, rather than walk through the glass. No place for me to do it in my tiny apartment, though. Too bad.-- hearingvoices, Feb 22 2003 random, halfbakery