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Hello David. Connect your laptop or computer to the flat screen via an HDMI cable, if available, or use a VGA cable if you don’t have this. Next, go to control panel in your computer, find display settings, and select “expand your desktop” That way, you can show them the perspective only when you are working on the floor plan. Otherwise, you can duplicate(mirror) your desktop if u want them to see what you are looking at on the floor plan or perspective. Check out this link for instructions on how to hook your laptop up to an external monitor. Copy and paste it into the web browser if it doesn’t allow you to click on it. Hope this helps!
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Yes, I display on a large screen TV using an AppleTV connected to the TV and Air Parrot 2 software on my notebook which sends the computer display to the AppleTV via the wifi. This works very nicely. Air Parrot also works with the Chromecast ‘dongle’ which is cheaper than an Apple TV but I haven’t tried it.
The only disadvantage is that you are still in a single display environment – you don’t get an extended desktop so they see exactly what is on the notebook display.
Another thing I tried recently is to use an iPad or Android Tablet as a second screen on my notebook – I do this with iDisplay for the iPad and Air Display for the Android Tablet. This extends my notebook screen and allows me to put the 3D render on the tablet.
I have yet to try it but you may then be able to echo the tablet screen to the TV via normal iPad or Android functions (you would still need Apple TV or Chromecast). The advantage of this would be that you can let the client move the 3D display round on the pad and they can watch the display change on the big TV!
I’ll be trying this second method in a week or 10 days and will report back.
A genuine wireless HDMI solution is about $300 – HDMI dongle for your notebook and a receiver for your TV but again, this then works as an extended display.
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Sorry, I meant to add that I have tried the notebook to tablet option and it works well but I have yet to link up the tablet to the big TV AT THE SAME TIME and this is what I’ll be trying soon.
EDIT: It appears Air Parrot 2 will soon include the ability to extend the laptop screen (as compared to just mirroring the laptop screen) to the Apple TV or Chromecast so this would appear to be the best option.
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OK I picked up a Chromecast yesterday. 2 minute setup (+ 5 minutes for it to download and install an update) and it was running.
There is a slight lag on display synchronisation between the notebook display and the TV but the quality is fine otherwise.
The only issue I had is that the TV displays at the resolution of the notebook (well duh, obviously) which in the test cases were 1366 x 768 and 1600 x 900. A Full HD TV can run at 1920 x 1080 so ideally, either pick a notebook with this screen resolution or plug in and switch to a standard external monitor on the VGA/HDMI port and run that screen at this resolution with the notebook screen blanked.
This limitation may disappear if the option of extending the display becomes available on Air Parrot.
None of the current wireless options (apart from the $300+ HDMi wireless solutions) work with a current extended 2 display option on the notebook as far as I can find.
tl;dr Air Parrot 2 + Chromecast on a notebook with decent screen resolution works perfectly acceptably.
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Addendum.
If you are considering a permanent showroom installation, I’d use an Apple TV instead of the Chromecast as the AppleTV has many additional functions and can run cecrtain things independently which the Chromecast cannot.As an example, you can leave the AppleTV running a slideshow or video presentation while not being used for the design presentation.
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