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.

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.

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]

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4300 quickly became frustrating, however, as I realized that I was facing a nightmare of proprietary connectors, unpublished protocols, and exotic cables.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.

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

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.

What are you lookin at? by Susan Murtaugh

Circus (left) and Stinker by Mike Miller

Amazing iPhone Art [via digg]

Fun vid by Bang-yao Liu, bringing the coordinated tyranny of stickies to life -

This is my senior project at Savannah College of Art and Design. Where my idea comes from is that every time when I am busy, I feel that I am not fighting with my works, I am fighting with those post-it notes and deadline.

And in case you missed it, check out Takeuchi Taijin's "A wolf loves pork" - another excellent stop-motion short -

Recently Hackerbot Labs was invited by Intellectual Ventures to demonstrate their Maker Faire Editor's Choice Award-winning high voltage coin shrinker in front of a Vision Research Phantom 100k fps high-speed camera.

Discharging about 10 kV (15,000 joules!) from enormous 300 µF capacitors the team at Hackerbot Labs "Turn half dollars into quarters! Turn quarters into dimes! Turn dimes into little semi-molten balls of metal!" with their custom built apparatus through a process known as "Magnaforming".

Passing current through a coil of wire produces a magnetic field. In this case, with so much current, the magnetic field produced is gigantic: the coil becomes a magnificently powerful electromagnet.

The creation of a magnetic field in the coil-now-magnet induces a circling current to flow around the coin sitting inside the coil. This current in the coin also produces a magnetic field (i.e., the coin becomes another electromagnet). The kicker is that the coin's magnetic field and the coil's magnetic field point in opposite directions, so the coin and the coil repel each other furiously.

This repulsion creates forces which overcome the strength of the metal; the coil is expanded out and explodes, and the coin is pushed in and shrunk.

Some interesting facts were gathered as a result of the demonstration:

• Filmed at 100,000 fps, the coin will shrink in just 30-40 microseconds


• The coin will have shrunk prior to the coil exploding


• A loud 135 dB shockwave is produced as the coil explodes


• When shrinking the edge of the coin moves at about 400 mph

High Speed Coin Shrinking [via Intellectual Ventures]

Flickr user JerryLeeTypes has a clever collection of embroidered images. The safety bike above reminds me of some of the pictures Danny was lasering onto books a few months ago. He also has some other great products in his Embroidery set, and there are some other cool projects in the Real Men Sew and Manbroidery pool.

Andrew Hicks, a mathemagician at Philadelphia's Drexel University, has lately made headlines with one of those head-slappingly simple, brilliant, OMG-why-didn't-I-think-of-that sort of projects: He makes mirrors. Not the run-of-the-mill flat mirrors most of us use every day for identifying vampires, but totally unorthodox, heretical, downright blasphemous mirrors with convoluted surfaces that do tricks I didn't even know mirrors can do--like reflecting things the right way 'round! New Scientist has some nice photos, and PhysOrg the story.

Eric started experimenting with processing and came up with GlowDoodle. A few weeks ago, he showed me the program and we messed around with some light. When we talked, he had the mac version running, and was still in development of the Windows version, which is also now ready for a free download. There are a bunch of neat samples on Flickr as well.

Recently, at a party, DC-area artist and photographer Jason Horowitz was lamenting the death of instant Polaroid film. I told him I'd read somewhere online that some folks had figured out (or were in the process of figuring out) how to make instant film so this beloved medium could live on. I made a mental note to look this up when I got home, to do a posting about it, but forgot. Jason didn't. He found what I was vaguely remembering, The Impossible Project. Started by a former Polaroid employee and a member of an online analog film fansite, the two have leased the former Polaroid factory in the Netherlands and hired chemists, engineers, and technicians to help them create a 21st century "integral film" that will work in 20th century Polaroid cameras. They even solicit help online -- for instance, they're currently looking for people who knowledge about latex chemistry to help in engineering the "latex timing layer," a layer in the deposition of the instant film.

The Impossible Project [Thanks, Jason!]

More:
No more Polaroid... instant film - and MAKE's look at Polaroid projects

MAKE contributor Will O'Brien mounted an ATC3K camera into his skiing goggles in order to grab some first-person action shots. He even created an enclosure for most of the electronics -

I thought about some complicated mounting tricks to attache the boxes to the straps, but found that electrical tape worked great. Keep in mind that the cold will drop the voltage on your average alkaline batteries - get some of the lithium AAs or the camera will keep shutting down.

Instructables user bigtreehouse writes:

The goal was to make a light box for my students to use that didn't cost me an arm and a leg. Went to the second-hand store and found a florescent light... ($4.99 with 50% off) then noticed a suitcase/briefcase ($3.99 with 50% off). I got them both and started thinking of ways to put them together.

From Hack N Mod:

We've seen some projects featuring how to draw with light using your camera's exposure settings, but nothing compares to this. This group goes by the name of Light Art Performance Photography and they use lasers, LEDs, illuminated body suits, sparklers and just about anything else which emits light to construct these incredible works of art.

Mindblowing LED, Light and Laser Photography

What says "family get-together" more perfectly than volatile, asphyxiating gas? Every year, Professor Fzz and his family get together over the Easter holiday and issue an "Easter Challenge." Last year, they made an Egg Cannon. This year, they built a hydrogen balloon and suspended camera rig to take pictures of granddad's house. I guess because part of the challenge awarded extra points for the "use of mad science," they even produced their own hydrogen!

This summer, we're going to be doing some content programming here on Make: Online around the concept of the MAKEcation, doing fun, educational, and geeky tech, science, and craft projects together with your family, as an alternative to the family get-away. This idea of issuing a family challenge to make and use something is really cool -- altho the hydrogen production might be a little over the top for most. You might wanna think through that "use of mad science" clause in your challenge.

If you have fun ideas for family challenges and MAKEcation plans, we'd love to hear about them in the Comments.

Reconnaissance Balloon

Our pal Eric Gradman came up with a cool augmented reality set-up for an event which poses the musical question: If you put all sorts of personal information on your Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter accounts, would you want to walk around in the real world with that data literally hanging over your head? He writes:

I installed this device at an event I help run every month. When people registered for the event in advance, I asked them for their Facebook and Twitter IDs, and then collected as much information as I could about them before the event. Then at the event, everyone got a custom badge with a sort of 2D barcode. I used face tracking and superimposed their personal data in a thought bubble over their head.

The Cloud Mirror

Here's an interesting vid of a close-up/card magician using augmented reality with his card tricks.

Marco Tempest

From the Maker Shed:

MAKE, Volume 13
Our Price: $14.99
MAKE, Volume 13 is our magic issue, loaded with enough tricks to keep your friends and family entertained and mystified for months. Telekinetic pens! Levitating heads! Ghostly blocks! These are just a few of the many terrific magic tricks you'll find in this issue of MAKE. And as always, you'll find dozens of other projects, ideas, tips, and tricks for doing everything from growing giant vegetables to finding lost screws.

Photo from svofski on Flickr in the MAKE Flickr pool

I made this from cardboard, old velvet jeans (for light-tight cover). The shutter is made from the back of an old 35mm camera. To start an exposure, you slide it down the plastic rails (barely visible). The pinhole itself is made in a foil shim.

Thanks to the large format and shallow depth, this camera is extremely wide angle and light falloff is severe.

image from svofsk on Flickr

Making your own camera is fun stuff, thanks for sharing your project!

Check out the great photos from the 1930s-40s in Color set at the Library of Congress on Flickr.

These vivid color photos from the Great Depression and World War II capture an era generally seen only in black-and-white. Photographers working for the United States Farm Security Administration (FSA) and later the Office of War Information (OWI) created the images between 1939 and 1944.

Image from the Library of Congress
The project is described on the Library of Congress' web site.

Photographers working for the U.S. government's Farm Security Administration (FSA) and later the Office of War Information (OWI) between 1939 and 1944 made approximately 1,600 color photographs that depict life in the United States, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The pictures focus on rural areas and farm labor, as well as aspects of World War II mobilization, including factories, railroads, aviation training, and women working.

Image from the Library of Congress

These photos are pretty neat and could be a fun addition to any hacker space or hands on classroom. The files are pretty high res, so they could be blown up nicely, or they could be used as a derivative work. Most, if not all, are legitimately free and have no known copyright restrictions.

Todd Vanderlin is working on using AR markers with OpenFrameworks to use a real record to scratch virtually. Check out the video or his Flickr set.

Image from Iri5 on Flickr Via WebUrbanist

In this series I showcase a number of portraits of musicians made out of recycled cassette tape with original cassette. Also included are portraits made from old film and reels. The idea comes from a philosopher's (Ryle) description of how your spirit lives in your body. I imagine we are all, like cassettes, thoughts wrapped up in awkward packaging. : )

Still got all your old aircheck tapes? But don't artify your mix tapes until they're digitized.

The camera obscura was the forerunner of the camera. Essentially, it is a darkened room with a hole in its wall. The image that comes through the hole or lens is projected onto the opposite wall, upside down and backwards.

Photo from Sgrah

On Flickr, you can find some neat examples of camera obscura photography. Check out the group Big Room Camera Obscura.

Aimino is conducting some very interesting experiments accessing the the real world via conventional computing interfaces. Arduino is employed for physical device control while an additional machine runs PTAM image processing software determines camera position. The above demo alone is entertaining/intriguing the concept seems to have much potential. Unfortunately Edit->Undo in everyday situations still seems unattainable :(

Folks in the Graffiti Research Lab/ FATlab/ whatever-it's-called-these-days are working on a project that is truly awesome on so many levels. TEMPT ONE, a famous Los Angeles graffiti writer, has ALS (aka Lou Gehrig's Disease), which means at this point that he has little motor control. What these folks are working on is a device to translate tracked eye movements into brush strokes for making light graffiti. A small camera mounted on a pair of glasses tracks pupil movement, and some software (built in OpenFrameworks) creates the visuals. Track the progress via daily update videos on the FATlab site.

Udi Tirosh writes in with this neat trick: use a tubular light like those found in car accessory shots as a sweeping swath light painting tool for long exposure photography. Looks way trippier than just using LEDs.

Many of us can recall repeatedly trying to load up NES cartridges that, for one reason or another, decided to display shifting screens of random bits instead of their intended game. No Carrier's open source glitchNES software makes exploring those accidental realms of digital art easy. Alter the code to your heart's content then load it up in your favorite emulator program. Though you may feel the reflexive urge to blow into a cartridge upon first viewing the results, these visuals would likely compliment your next chiptune performance quite nicely. [via Create Digital Motion]

Patty Maes of the Fluid Interfaces Group at the MIT Media Lab introduces what may be the must have gadget in the not so far future.

The SixthSense prototype is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The hardware components are coupled in a pendant like mobile wearable device. Both the projector and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user's pocket. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and physical objects around us to be used as interfaces; while the camera recognizes and tracks user's hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques. The software program processes the video stream data captured by the camera and tracks the locations of the colored markers (visual tracking fiducials) at the tip of the user's fingers using simple computer-vision techniques. The movements and arrangements of these fiducials are interpreted into gestures that act as interaction instructions for the projected application interfaces. The maximum number of tracked fingers is only constrained by the number of unique fiducials, thus SixthSense also supports multi-touch and multi-user interaction.

Thanks Lyle and Susan.

Want to give this system a try? She says it can be made from off the shelf parts for just $350. Post up your ideas in the comments, and show us your stuff in the MAKE Flickr pool.

This how-to is in Hungarian, but the pictures pretty much tell you what you need to know.

How to make a DIY ring flash

Youtube user Petitblenderman has a great video of a Rubik's Cube solved in a Blender animation.

Danny says this looks reasonably solid. You may remember Danny's laser cut tactile cube post by Collin.

Looks pretty legit to me. The cube's colors are all in the right place, although I was a little confused at about :27 where in the middle of the solution, the cube seems to be scrambled only by half turns (180 degree turns on a face). The rest of the solution is in half turns, which is unusual. It looks good though!

Have you got any clever Rubik's Cube solutions/problems? Have you made something cool with Blender? Join the conversation in the comments, and contribute your photos and video to the MAKE Flickr pool.