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Watch this: Robot arm composes intricate 3D light paintings
What happens when you outfit a robot arm used for manufacturing with RGB LEDs? Well, lots of things we'd surmise, but super detailed 3D light paintings are but some of the possibilities. A pair of human/computer interaction students at Carnegie Mellon have done just that, producing much more detailed results than previous efforts. Using a Kinect to capture the subject(s), a collection of 5,000 points are plotted over the course of about half and hour with various software applications handling the plotting, color, 3D modeling and more. To log the work in its entirety, DSLRs snap long exposure stills as the arm does its work. Perhaps that ABB IRB 6640 can moonlight as a portrait artist between construction projects.
Adafruit builds Raspberry Pi-powered light painting rig, takes trippy photos
Taking long exposure photographs at night and painting within them using an iPad may be old hat, but building your own light painting rig? That could earn you some serious geek cred, and according to Adafruit, it isn't even all that hard. In a new walkthrough, the team fashioned such a contraption using a Raspberry Pi, a python script with under 60 lines of code, some open source software and a handful of electronic components. Not satisfied with the typical light wand, they decided to spice things up with a circular fixture built from PVC pipes and a hula hoop to hold the ribbon of LEDs. After being attached to a bike and paraded around at night, it created the 3D effect in the masterpiece above. If you're itching to make your own works of art, check out Adafruit's tutorial at the source link below.
Kinect Graffiti creates neon tags with the wave of a hand (video)
Are you tired of Kinect hacks yet? We didn't think so -- good thing too 'cause we're not done bringing 'em to you. The latest one to hit our tips box comes from designer Jean-Christophe Naour (Innoiz Interactive), a 3D light-painting program he calls Kinect Graffiti. While calling the results "graffiti" might be a little misleading (Naour isn't exactly bombing virtual walls) it does whip up some nice streaky neon images that can capture the act of tagging, if not the final product. We won't waste any more of your time with our rambling -- a picture is worth a thousand words, and the video after the break is composed of over 4,000 of those. Don't miss the flood of photos at the more coverage link either.
Design project paints city's WiFi networks with light
We've seen WiFi detectors used for various DIY projects before, but none quite like this rather ambitious project cooked up by Norwegian designers Timo Armall, Jørn Knutsen, and Einar Sneve Martinussen. They built a four-meter long WiFi-detecting rod that boasts 80 LED bulbs and carried it around various neighborhoods in Oslo, picking up signals of various strengths from nearby WiFi networks all the way. That's only the half of it, though. The real kicker is that they also captured the whole thing with long-exposure photographs to effectively paint the "invisible terrain" of WiFi networks with light. Head on past the break for a video, and hit up the source links below for a closer look at the entire process. [Thanks, Christer]
Tron: Legacy gets its very own interactive halfpipe (video)
Look, y'all know that Tron: Legacy comes out in just a few painful hours. You've probably seen those Daft Punk headphones, a blue-glowy Razer mouse, and the obligatory armchair, among other insane promotional items. But those earthly objects definitely weren't enough to fulfill the geeky capacity of the branding opportunities that such a cinematic event -- nay, spectacle -- creates. Melbourne-based interactive design company Eness went ahead and built an interactive projection-mapped skate ramp to commemorate the premiere. The Aussies who got to shred in this thing created and destroyed light trails, exploded through galaxies of color and shapes piped straight from the Grid, and had their airtime measured in real time and projected onto the ramp. It's not quite a real-life light cycle battle, but we'll take it. Must-see video after the jump.
App Review: Penki light painting for iOS
Ah yes, the future! It's nice when it arrives on your front doorstep... or on your iPod. It's even nicer when you ask for something and then you get it: a few months back, we drooled over Dentsu London's light extrusion tech demo and humbly demanded its App Store release. Now, app in hand, we're busy running around our houses trying to become some sort of half-baked Jenny Holzer. It's called Penki, and it takes your text / symbol input and turns it into 3D-flavored imagery via long-exposure photography. Sounds bodacious, right? But, as we all know, the future isn't perfect -- read on for the full account of our shiny journey into the third dimension. %Gallery-108680%
iPad light painting adds geeky bling to your boring real-world space
There are lots of contenders for the killer app that'll take the iPad to the next level, and we think light extrusion is currently near the top of the heap. Dentsu London has paired accelerometer-based software with long exposure/stop-motion photographs to take 3D renderings into real space, with a result that reminds us of the Graffiti Research Lab. Sure, you could do this on an iPod touch, but it's that real-world iPad bigness that makes it awesome -- one of those moments that makes you sit back and say dang, future, you're here! We can't wait for this to make its way into the App Store -- and our nieces' Facebook albums -- ASAP. Crazy light painting video after the jump.
Light painting in stop motion with the iPad
This is about the coolest thing done with an iPad since, well, the iPad itself was created. A firm named Dentsu London has used an iPad to create a series of stop motion shots assembled from sequential long exposure light paintings. They created a set of 3D graphics and then programmed the iPad to show a set of cross sections, frame-by-frame, of those graphics. The cross sections were "painted" into the air with long exposure photographs, and then the photographs were all put together into a stop motion animation. The end effect is just amazing -- don't just watch the beginning on how they did it, make sure you stick around for the film itself. It's a beautiful piece, as well as an ingenious way of using the iPad to create something exceptional. If you're really interested in these images, the creators have also put together a book featuring some of the best stills from the video. It's quite an impressive piece of work. [via TDW]
