For those not in the know, a Cintiq is a fancy wacom tablet that lets one draw directly onto a screen. These also tend to be fairly expensive.

I was watching this earlier and about halfway through our host and humble narrator Johnny Lee shows that with a properly set up projector, an infrared light pen, a wii remote, and his program one can use a table as a drawing tablet.

He then later shows that this doesn't even require a projector and will work directly on any LCD laptop screen. Granted, as stated in the end of the video it doesn't track as well as an actual tablet would but it still seems like an awesome bum solution, and being a bum I'm all for it.

Considering I'm in lieu of any cash (Curse you Kringle and your holiday of giving!) or an IR pen, does any one with such a pen (or the funds to buy one) wish to try this out and report with the results?

To be honest, I doubt the results would be that good enough for drawing. As he said, the resolution isn't as good as an actual interactive whiteboard. Wacom tablets have an even greater sensitivity than a whiteboard. I've actually used a interactive whiteboard to paint a picture (in photoshop) and the sensitivity wasn't all that great, but it could just be that it was a cheap interactive whiteboard.

However, if it's the pen that's lacking, I'm sure it wouldn't be all that difficult to make one. Infrared LEDs are pretty cheap, about 10p ($0.05) each.

The idea is really interesting though, if I get the time I might look into it...