Make: Online: Imaging Archives

Imaging Archive: Imaging

September 15, 2009

Halloween mirror in Processing

Instructables user Lighttamer presents this awesome software to turn your monitor and webcam into an augmented-reality scary face machine. Masks, which you can design, are overlaid on human faces in the video feed in real time.

Timelapse history of the sky

From the MAKE Flickr pool

Ken Murphy is capturing a year's worth of timelapse sequences from atop San Francisco's exploratorium - seen above is the first 42 days of his project -

The earliest day is in the upper left, and consecutive days follow left to right, then down, with the most recent day in the lower right. It starts a little before sunrise, so it's dark for the first few seconds:
[...]
Keep in mind that all of the days are synchronized, so at any given moment, you're looking at the sky at the exact same time of day for each of the panels. The cascading effect at sunrise and sunset is caused by the variations in day length.

The collective effect of sunset is quite cinematic - read more on MurphLab.

September 1, 2009

Star Wars: West Coast defense

The reason Photoshop was invented? I think yes.

AT-ST patrols Cannon Beach, Oregon, at sunset. Evidently the Empire is cracking down on the outlying systems.

Mike Horn made this series of still images over a weekend after several people asked for hi-res wallpapers from his videos Death Star Over San Francisco and Death Star Destroys Enterprise. He Photoshopped them from personal photos and Star Wars images off Wookieepedia.

Flickr set here, suitable for framing.

San Francisco scout trooper on lunch break on the Embarcadero, and in this joint you can bet he downed a few Buds with that burger. Ready to ride.

These stormtroopers are real -- they're members of the 501st Legion Golden Gate Garrison who generously volunteered to be in Horn's video Death Star Destroys Enterprise, shot on location in the old World War II artillery batteries in the Marin Headlands north of San Francisco.

Read full story

August 7, 2009

Hacking the PS3 camera

Because of its affordable price and speedy framerates, Sony's PS3 Eye camera has become a popular choice for hacking by interactive video experimentalists. Creat Digital Motion posted a nice feature on modding the device, highlighting several video tutorials by Peau Productions for IR filtration and even adding a custom enclosure. Read the full article over at CDM.

Tangible holography

A group from the University of Tokyo have developed a method for adding tangibility to holograms using focussed ultrasonic waves -

This project adds tactile feedback to the hovering image in 3D free space. Tactile sensation requires contact with objects, but including a stimulator in the work space dilutes the appearance of holographic images. The Airborne Ultrasound Tactile Display solves this problem by producing tactile sensation on a user's hand without any direct contact and without diluting the quality of the holographic projection.

More info from SIGGRAPH '09 and the project's page.

August 4, 2009

Flat pack iPhone copy stand

DAAP industrial design student Kyle A Koch designed and fabricated this useful flat pack copy stand for the iPhone. It will copy a standard letter-sized sheet with reasonable fidelity.

[via crave]

July 27, 2009

How-To: Take Schlieren photographs at home

My post last week about shadowgraphy and Schlieren photography generated a lot of enthusiastic responses and not a few requests for a more detailed tutorial. Among the comments was one by Ian Smith, who has a great page here describing his own Schlieren photography set-up. (While you're there, take a moment to appreciate the fact that Ian's URL is "www.ian.org"....think he's been around the 'net awhile?) Thanks again, Ian!

July 23, 2009

Graphic animations from a gunsight

I'm very much digging these classic visual effects created by animation pioneer John Whitney using parts from an anti-aircraft gunsight. YouTuber crystalsculpture2 gives more info -

John Whitney's demo reel of work created with his analog computer/film camera magic machine he built from a WWII anti-aircraft gun sight. Also Whitney and the techniques he developed with this machine were what inspired Douglas Trumbull (special fx wizard) to use the slit scan technique on 2001: A Space Odyssey

[Thanks Erica!]

How-To: Ceiling fan POV display

Looking to build a motorized POV display, UncleBone made use of a certain rotary mechanism he already had on hand -

Seeing so many persistence of vision ideas on the web was too tempting not to try one. After considering several different motors to drive a display, a ceiling fan seemed to run at just the right speed, is out of the way, and very quiet compared with alternatives. With a micro controller based on the Arduino, this project provided plenty of both software and hardware learning and besides, the kids were involved throughout...

PCB, souce code, plus the Excel doc used to generate the display sequences are all available on Step 12 of the project's instructable.

More:

LED art fan

In the Maker Shed:

Makezinepov Crop

MiniPOV kit

July 22, 2009

Shadowgrams and Schlieren photography

False-color shadowgram of gunshot from a .357 magnum by Gary Settles at Penn State university.

The New York Times has an awesome slideshow of shadowgrams and Schlieren photographs, created by engineering professor Gary Settles, which accompany a 2008 article about his work at Penn State's Gas Dynamics Lab. The method, which can produce fantastic visualizations of fluid flow in turbulent systems, is amazingly simple. I am surprised there aren't more hobbyists doing it.

July 20, 2009

How-To: Adjustable snorricam

Cartermarquis writes:

The Snorricam, named after Einar Snorri and Eiour Snorri,or the "Snorri Brothers", is a body mount for a camera which is used to create an interesting point of view, which can be seen in such movies as I Am Legend, Slumdog Millionaire, and The Hangover. I work for a small video production company, and with much enthusiasm from my boss, I designed and built my own version of the Snorricam, which is very adjustable and versatile. For about $30 in parts, and around a day of labor, You can have yourself an adjustable Snorricam of your own!

As a woman, I can see room for improvement in the chest plate design, but otherwise this looks really cool!

July 16, 2009

How-To: PVC gimbal stabilizer

I really like the inexpensive gimbal support developed by William over at YB2nornal for his $15 steadicam project. I may bogart it for a forthcoming Make: Project. Via Hack a day.

From the pages of MAKE:

Johnny Lee showed us how to build a $14 Video Camera Stabilizer way back in MAKE 01.

July 15, 2009

3D digital cameras... no glasses required

3D Camera 0720-1
Fig 07
Fig 08
3D cameras are coming, this year -

More than two decades ago, Fujifilm was one of the first camera manufacturers to see the future of photography was digital. In 1988, the Japanese imaging giant developed the world's first fully digital still camera; 10 years ago Fujifilm held 30% of the digicam market. But that dominant position proved difficult to defend against competitors such as Nikon, Olympus and Canon. Today, Fujifilm is one of the industry's also-rans, with just a 6.7% market share.
There's one way to get back into the game: invent new rules. That's just what Fujifilm plans to do later this year when it unveils the world's first 3-D digital camera for consumers. The company hopes that its groundbreaking new gadget -- tentatively named the FinePix Real 3D System -- will allow it to leapfrog the competition by bringing 3-D capabilities to the masses, at the same time putting a little buzz back into the business of taking snapshots.

....In the past, special viewing accessories such as 3-D glasses or stereoscopes were needed for this to work. Not so with Fujifilm's system, which offers two viewing options. One is a 3-D digital picture frame -- an eight-inch (20 cm) LCD screen that directs the dual images to the left and right eyes, creating the 3-D effect. The other option is 3-D prints, which are made with a clear plastic overlay that acts as a kind of 3-D lens. Fujifilm plans to launch an online service that will make 3-D prints for consumers.

Some additional tech details on their press site. Camera will be about $600 and the 3D prints are $5 a pop - I'm sure we'll be able to make our own prints, use our own screens and save some $. And of course, you can make your own 3D cameras and images right now...

More:

July 5, 2009

TagTool goes partying

This at the "Saint Andrew's strip" in Cholula. Felixe (Mexico) took his freshly baked TagTool to get some air in a reknowned bar where it livened up the party and inspired a healthy interactive night.

All the equipment is on the table: DIY TagTool with Arduino inside, laptop to connect it to, Wacom to draw and write, game controller to make everything (and everyone) wiggle. Hours of fun!

More pictures

Make: en Español

July 3, 2009

Thermographic camera on the cheap

Jörn Loviscach shares strategies for thermographic imaging using an infrared thermometer and custom software. Impressive results considering IR thermometers can be had for less than a hundred bucks while the cameras cost several thousand. [via Hack a Day]

Update: There's also a related discussion in our forums, where Bill Beatty points out an interesting strategy.

July 2, 2009

Metallurgical eye candy

An alloy of 1.3% copper, 0.3% magnesium, and 0.3% manganese in aluminum, etched with potassium permanganate and lye.

So I woke up this morning all pumped up to blog about metallography. If you don't already know, metallography is a type of scientific microimaging that involves mirror-polishing metal surfaces and then etching them with various reagents to reveal their microstructures, which are often of breathtaking beauty.

"Griffith Cannon Flash," by Dr. Frederick E. Schmidt, from the iron of a cannon used at Gettysburg.

Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of these images online. ASM International, the big metallurgical professional society, has a large online database of metallographs, but it's locked away behind a members-only paywall. Except for a couple of skimpy .PDFs (2007, 2008), even the winners of their annual International Metallographic Contest seem to go largely unpublicized.

Which is a shame, not only because the images themselves are so beautiful, but because they could inspire a whole culture of amateur and artistic metallographers that does not, as far as I can tell, presently exist. Which fact also surprises me, by the way, because the equipment and techniques of metallography are very accessible to amateurs, especially relative to other modern methods of materials analysis.

"Grain structure in CC cast 3304 aluminum alloy," by Elana Naez.

If you know of anyone who's making metallographs as a hobby or as a means of personal artistic expression, please drop me a link in the comments.

DIY HD home theater projector

Assemble your very own HD home theater projector using these DIY kits from G&P Optoelectronics. Combine the optics, housing, lighting, and electronics bundles and with luck you'll be watching your favorite episodes of Make: Television in glorious 1280x720 HD in no time.

DIY HD projector for under €499 [via slashgear]

June 29, 2009

How-To: Dual USB/serial cable for Nikon Coolpix cameras

I recently got it in my head that I wanted to take some time-lapse photos showing the oxidation of various bright-polished metals over the course of a week or so. Investigating the possibility of setting up an intervalometer for my elderly Coolpix 4300 quickly became frustrating, however, as I realized that I was facing a nightmare of proprietary connectors, unpublished protocols, and exotic cables. Nikon manufactured a time-lapse controller compatible with my camera (the MC-EU1), but all the reviews I've seen are unfavorable, and I can't find one for sale for less than $85.

To make matters worse, it turns out the proprietary 8-pin connector used on the 4300 and other older Coolpix cameras is dual-function: Four of the pins provide for normal USB connectivity, while the other four provide the serial interface used, for instance, by the MC-EU1 to remotely control the camera. My camera was supplied with a cable to access the USB half of the connector, but of course getting to the serial pins requires the purchase of a completely different cable (the SC-EW3), which can't be had for less than $30 plus shipping.

Fortunately, I then stumbled across this excellent tutorial by David Holmes about how to convert the connector on the bundled USB cable into a dual-use USB/serial cable that lets you swap out the proprietary end with two different harnesses that access the USB or the serial pins as needed. Thanks, David!

P.S. I've found a promising piece of freeware called Snappixx that claims to control the Coolpix cameras through the serial interface. I can't vouch for it yet, however, other than to report that it downloads, installs, and starts up without any apparent hitches.

June 25, 2009

How-To: Magnify your workbench

William Grill needed a better view of his work surface for project prototyping. Using an inexpensive color video camera, he was able to create a simple display system that shows his work at 12x on his PC monitor. "It's amazing what detail you can see when you view your solder surface mounted parts at 7-, 10- or even 15-times," he writes.

Gadget Freak Case #135: Magnify Your Workbench

June 18, 2009

iPhone as sketch pad

Media player, mobile phone, Internet device, gaming console... sketch pad? It would seem that not only is the iPhone up-ending the mobile and gaming industries, but it seems to be making inroads into fine art as well. What had seemed like a novel concept for contemporary magazine cover art has turned into a global phenomenon. iPhone users across the world are producing fantastic works of art with little more than their index finger, a paint app, and a 3.5" screen.

By far, the top dog of the iPhone paint apps is Brushes. Its simple interface is both welcoming and direct. You get a canvas, brush picker, color picker and that multi-touch interface the iPhone is famous for.