So while I was building this, I knew that there was not much of a margin of error, and quite a few opportunities for error to add up. Each wire uses 4 pixels, and each pixel is only about a millimeter wide. Accounting for the lame straight edge (a taught string), inacurate drilling, and blurring of the projection image, I was prepared to cut every other wire if blurring was too much. Accordingly, while I wanted to call it “Wiremap 256,” I decided to lay off until I was certain that there would actually be two hundred and fifty six wires in the final project.
Well, I finished putting it all together and callibrating it this week, and am proud to call it Wiremap 256. Have a look:
Like always, the video isn’t really a good representation of the experience of standing in front of a volumetric renderer, but hey, you sorta get the idea.
I mention some Java applets in my video, here they are:
- http://www.phedhex.com/wiremap/256/calib/
- http://www.phedhex.com/wiremap/256/globe/
- http://www.phedhex.com/wiremap/256/cube/
Feel free to take a look at the source code and play around with it (a link to the code is available at the bottom of each page). All of the programming was done in the Processing environment. If you have any questions regarding the code, feel free to email me.
Very intriguing. I really like the concept of using fibers as the projection surface. It gives each one the effect of a vertical scan line.
When you showed the top of the string fixture, the arrangement of the string holes did not appear to be a regular grid. Or did I not get a complete view of it?
Also, could you explain more of how you decide on how the projected pattern is made. Does your program have an internal map of the string arrangement?
Far back in the mists of time, (1981 actually), I designed a fiber optic grid to display in depth color bands to be syncronized to music. I never fabricated it, but one of the ideas I had for a refinement was to make tiny nicks in the fiber surface at regular intervals. I would shine a color light down the fiber, and the nicked area would light. To modulate the color, I would have used a prism mounted to a galvanometer to sweep the top of the array.
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Hi, this is really interesting – I may have some suggestions that might help you improve the design – or at least perhaps get you thinking about it a little differently – and I would like to explore this with you.
Maybe I’m dumb – but when you say ‘email me’ I can’t actually find your email address anywhere. Please email me at raid517 AT ukonline.co.uk so that we can discuss this.
Thanks.