Possible ideas for large proximity sensor for LED display

Other Hardware Sensors
1

I'm looking at creating an interactive LED display roughly 2x1m in size, which is capable of sensing multiple inputs through proximity or touch. Similar to existing projects like this: Interactive Proximity Sensing Table Modules, Infrared Sensors - YouTube

A large touch screen would be ideal since it is transparent but this is too costly. IR emitters and detectors would be good but to get a decent resolution this would require a lot of components, wiring and soldering.

Does anyone know of any solutions which fall into the middle ground of these two solutions?

Something like this looks ideal since it seriously reduces the amount of wiring necessary but I've found little information on the topic beyond this page and don't know enough about electronics to develop a similar system myself. http://www.rm.mce.uec.ac.jp/sjE/index.php?Proximity%20sensor

2

The mesh sensor is acting like a resistive touch screen. Both have four connections: X1,X2 on the ends of one plane and Y1,Y2 on the sides of the other. With the touch screen it is pressure that connects one plane to another. With the mesh proximity sensor it is IR phototransistors. In both cases you place a voltage across X1 and X2 to get a voltage out of Y1 or Y2 which indicates where the two planes are connected along the X axis. You then place a voltage across Y1 and Y2 and get a voltage out of X1 or X2 which indicated where the two planes are connected along the Y axis.