Thinking of building a laser holiday tree...

I work for a science center, and this holiday season we're thinking of doing a holiday laser tree in an area of the building that's about 5 stories tall! It's a neat project, but as we start putting together a proposal, I'm wonfering how powerful of a green laser we'd need to get the job done.

Some info:
• The area is about 5 stories tall, with little direct sunlight and lots of lighting that can be controlled or dimmed a bit.

• We'd want the laser to make a cone about 20-40ft in diameter. I have questions on the easiest way to do this as well (XY scanner, simple motor/mirror combo).

• We could probably round up a smoke machine to enhance the effect.

• The laser would need to be powered by A/C, mounted in to a frame that we could then mount to our lighting assembly.

So... how powerful would we need to go to have this look really beautiful? Any ideas on the scanner vs motor/mirror situation? :thanks:

If you just want a green cone, you can use a laser tunnel effect. Like the one mentioned in this thread: http://laserpointerforums.com/f49/time-tunnel-44351.html

Knew the motor side of it was easy since we're essentially talking about a cone. I'm not 100% sure if we'd want to do other patterns, or if we did, maybe they'd be in the future. I guess we could go 2 ways: super easy and cheap, or spend a little more dough and have something a bit more permanent.

I'm leaning towards a better setup so we can reuse it in the future and/or repurpose it.

Do we need 100mW laser? 1000mW? Not sure how powerful we're talking here to fill this space properly and keep people safe. Obviously we'd keep people out of the beam area...

Pics of the space attached!