Capture Model: Prioritize wall-projection laser experiment footage

[ProhibitedTV]

Parent roadmap: #3
Related: #5, #16, #18, #21

Objective

Refine LaserLab's target media model so the software is optimized for the actual research footage we care about: a real laser projected onto a wall or flat surface, optionally through an intermediate optical/diffraction material, captured as home-lab or community experimental footage.

Public optical videos and Wikimedia laser explanation clips are still useful, but they should be treated as calibration, fixture, regression, and demo media rather than the primary research input class.

Primary target footage

LaserLab should prioritize already-recorded footage matching this pattern:

laser source -> optional material / diffraction layer / optical surface -> wall or flat projection target -> camera capture

Examples:

• Laser spot or diffracted laser pattern projected onto a wall.
• Laser passing through an experimental layer/material and then appearing on a wall.
• Fixed camera watching the wall/surface where the projected structure appears.
• A stable room-scale setup with matched control footage captured under the same geometry.

Non-primary fixture footage

These remain useful, but should not be presented as the core target media:

• Wikimedia/public educational clips about diffraction/interference.
• Laser explanation videos.
• Generic optical phenomenon footage that was not captured as a wall-projection experiment.
• Synthetic fixtures used for CI/golden regression tests.

These should be labeled as calibration_fixture, regression_fixture, or demo_fixture, not as primary experiment footage.

Tasks

• Update README language to state that wall-projection laser footage is the intended primary research input.
• Update docs/researcher_workflow.md with a capture guide for wall-projection experiments.
• Update fixture documentation to distinguish primary experimental footage from calibration/regression/demo fixtures.
• Add ingest/capture metadata fields for:
  • projection surface type
  • wall/target distance estimate
  • laser-to-target geometry notes
  • intermediate material/layer notes
  • camera stability/tripod notes
  • exposure/focus/saturation notes
  • room lighting notes
• Add UI checklist items for whether the run has:
  • wall or flat projection target
  • fixed camera
  • matched control footage
  • stable laser geometry
  • non-saturated projected region
• Add report language that describes whether the run used primary wall-projection footage or fixture/demo footage.

Suggested control captures

For wall-projection experiments, guide users toward controls such as:

• Same wall, same camera, same focus/exposure, laser off.
• Same wall and laser geometry, but without the intermediate material/layer.
• Same wall and material/layer, but with an alternate neutral control path where applicable.
• Sensor/dark/noise control if available.
• Repeated captures to test frame-to-frame and session-to-session persistence.

Acceptance criteria

• README and researcher workflow docs clearly state that wall-projection laser footage is the primary target input class.
• Fixtures are described as calibration/regression/demo material, not as the main research footage model.
• Dashboard setup/checklist guides users toward wall-projection capture quality and matched controls.
• Manifest/report output preserves wall-projection capture context.
• Reports do not imply that generic public laser videos are equivalent to actual wall-projection experiment footage.

Notes

This matters because the DMT-laser claim community is usually discussing a laser projected in a physical space onto a wall/surface, not abstract educational laser videos. LaserLab should remain conservative, but it should be conservative about the correct target phenomenon.