Real-time image followers works, basically, in 2 different ways.
First one, the oldest, need that you wear reflective sensors on any joint or moving part (reflects IR and are neutrals for normal light) ..... then a fixed camera "read" the IR reflectors and the paths that they do when you move yourself, and an almost simple
program track and extrapolate all the paths and reconstruct the figure, or use them for drive the graphic part.
The second, newer, is based on DPS and image elaboration specific software, and was made possible from the rising of the power calculation of moderns PC's (cause it need a very good program and usually a hell of PC) ..... it manage and analyze all the frames one by one, extrapolate and calculate the position of a previously selected image, and from these data can drive graphics, overlay different images in real-time, change entire scenes on-the-fly, and ofcourse also track your contour driving the galvos, with an opportune interface ..... it work directly on the selected images, so no more need to wear reflective sensors.
I've seen one of these on-the-fly scene changer machines, based on this technology (but much more high level), on a professional video show expo, and was amazing ..... as example, on the demo set, i registered on the machine my face, all the angles, then the machine was set for change it with another one, memorized before ..... no matter how much peoples was passing in front of the camera, each time i was passing, my image had another face, and the others not, including lips sync, and all the scene was delayed from real-time no more than half second ..... the only bad thing, was the price, 220.000 euro (approximatively 300.000 $ ..... not exactly "cheap", LOL)
But for your application, i suppose that a simple motion-detection software based on a grid pattern and a fixed camera is enough ..... after all, as far as i've understood, you just want to make the laser follow your movements, not change anything in the image, right ?
