I wish to make a table top peppers ghost.
Something to carry and place on a table top
open up a theatre like opening. dim the lights.
and a face appears.

JudgeBean

There used to be a science show called Mr. Wizard. He once did something using this principle. It used a shoebox sized box and had a hole on one side that you looked into. You would see an object and could cause it to dissappear or turn into another object. I'm not sure if there are plans on making this, but you may be able to use this to do what you describe.

I don't see why you couldn't use Jim Steinmeyer's book to build a smaller model. I would think it should work the same.

Amos McCormick

Read "Hiding The Elephant" by Steinmeyer. It may be of help.

Interesting.
My daughter has just completed her science fair project this year and presents it at the end of this week. She chose "Eye Dazzling Optical Illusions" as her topic.

Her 3-D project was a Table top Pepper's Ghost scene where a family is at the table eating (she used her doll house people). Suddenly, Grandpa appears in the scene from no-where. Pretty cool for a kid!!

The only problem with PG is that the hidden chamber has to be the same size as the visible one - and somehow adjacent to it. This means you more than double your "scene" or viewing area. That can be a fairly large box for a small viewing area.

I've seen commercial ad kiosks for IBM (the computer one) which have a scene in which a fairy runs around. This is done with a cartoon fairy on a small TV screen in front of - and below - the scene area. So, you're looking into a rather deep box display and the scene is over 18 inches back. It was pretty cool.

I had a friend in my SAM club who put a PG box on a mannequin. By switching chamber lights he made the model's head go from normal to a creepy skull. This was outside his door and would happen when the kiddies came up for candies.

Bottom line is that it's doable, but takes up more space than you might immediately expect.

-Dave