Re: Back to the Future II 2015 Jacket Build
One problem is that the specs will say the prismatic cells are "square-based" on some designs when they are obviously parallelograms/diamonds. Gary's current polystyrene panel has cells that are the closest to a true square shape that I've been able to find, with the exception of the domed cell designs with have inaccurate small pyrmaids in-between the raised circular bumps.
Gary, I think that the panel you have now is of identical cell design as the ones you just ordered samples of, but we'll see.
I need to look back at the pics of the real jacket. I think in some shots the cells look perfectly square, and in some they look like slightly-elongated diamonds. It depends on your viewing angle. Also, I wonder how much the lighting angle in the real jacket pics is affecting, and possibly accentuating, the perceived depth of the circular bumps... They do look to be more raised but we're only going off a couple close-up shots with an unknown lighting angle and comparing them to Gary's panel with lighting coming from (I would guess) directly overhead.
I can pretty much squash the beads theory. If you look at the cells on the real jacket you'll note that each one has a small peak (dare I say "n1pple") at the top of each circular bump, just as most cells on a lighting panel have. These bumps don't seem as pronounced on the cells of Gary's current panel, but they are there. There is no way, even if you could find beads that each had this bump, to have glued them down in such a way as to make all of these bumps point perfectly towards the top.