Enter your room and your projector details, and this page works out the screen size that fits, where the projector mounts, and whether the room is deep enough for your launch monitor type. All measurements are in feet and/or inches. The calculator assumes grommets along the sides (which won't be part of the viewing area). You can decide on grommets or pockets along the top and bottom. When using pockets, you can elect to project onto the pocket area or leave this out of the canvas. Results are planning figures: verify the final numbers against your projector and launch monitor manuals before you build.
This calculator works out four things: the image size that fits your room, the finished size to order, the frame opening, and whether the room is deep enough for your launch monitor type. For example, with an 8-foot ceiling and a 16:9 projector, the image is 8 feet tall and 14 feet 3 inches wide, before hems and pockets. Start with the DIY Golf Simulator Room guide if you have not planned the room yet. Once the numbers check out, order a custom screen to the finished size.
How the numbers work. Max image height is the ceiling height minus the top bar drop and the top and bottom finishing kept out of the image: the selected pocket height plus 1 in of sewing for a pocket edge, or a 2 in hem for a grommet edge (a pocket edge counts as image height if projecting onto the pockets is on); max image width is the room width minus twice the side gap and the 4 in of side hems, where the grommets sit. The image is kept off the hems; order by finished size and plan the image for the viewing area. Room depth is a shared budget, not a sum of separate rooms: the radar unit sits in the space behind the golfer, so the depth needed is the behind-screen gap plus the tee-to-screen distance plus whichever is larger of the backswing space and the monitor depth (7 ft for radar, 2 ft for camera). Brightness in foot-lamberts is lumens times gain divided by screen area in square feet; 16 foot-lamberts is the dark-room planning target and 30 is the ambient-light target. A finished screen taller than the 120 in raw material width needs a seamed build. If any check fails, the note under it says what to change.
