[Animats]

Use Fresnel lenses with a shorter focal length and reduce the depth.

It would be useful to start with a standard home-type window from, say, Home Depot, and build a unit about 120mm deep using multiple shorter focal length Fresnel lenses.[1] Then, in a basement or windowless room, mount some of these into a wall. Add curtains. Nice if your home office or workshop is in a basement.

This has commercial applications. Houses have few windowless rooms, but commercial structures have many.

[1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Fresnel-lens-plastic-...

[DanBC]

DIY Perks has previously shown how to do that, and it looked pretty good.

Turning Smashed TVs into realistic daylight panels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JrqH2oOTK4

[EricE]

Keep watching the video - he builds Fresnel lens versions at the end of the video.

The satellite dish is more dramatic so I don't blame him for leading with it :)

[Animats]

The idea is to build this as a light box behind a standard windowpane frame. Like this one.[1] With a 120mm short focal length, the unit only needs to be about 150 - 200mm deep, if you angled the optics so you get light at a 30 degree angle or so. (Horizontal sun rays would look wrong.) That's a convenient size; you could hang it on a wall, like a rather bulky picture.

[1] https://www.walmart.com/ip/Darice-Wooden-Window-Pane-w-6-Pan...

[Acinyx]

lenses cause chromatic abberations though, the red/yellow halo around the beam you see in his cheaper version at the end.

[faceplanted]

I have a chromatic film on my actual windows because I like the effect so there's technically a market for it , especially if it makes it cheaper and smaller

[kristiandupont]

I am really curious about this -- do you have it just for the effect? What does it look like?