- 162
sliced light in color
Fine Art
/ Photography
This project was done as a birthday gift for my 3 year old daughter
I had initially done this experiment one year back using a single color LED and 3d models I downloaded from the internet. The initial results were very promising hence I decided to extend the experiment to be done using a RGB LED which would in theory would give me 16,777,216 colors .
Light painting has been done ever since cameras have been invented. Initially it was done on film and later with the advent of Dslrs it became possible with digital cameras.
Light painting, or light drawing, is a photographic technique in which exposures are made by moving a hand-held light source while taking a long exposure photograph, either to illuminate a subject or to shine a point of light directly at the camera. Light painting can also describe works where the camera itself is moved during exposure. ( wikipidea )
I had built a Delta printer called the 3DR which is a reprap printer designed by Richard Horne. Since I had built the printer myself it was easy for me to change or add to the electronics. The way the printer mostly works is by reading a GCODE file and following the commands in the file. That’s how most of the reprap printers work. The GCODE file is generated by a software called the SLICER which reads a 3d model file and spits out the GCODE.
So in order to control the LED , one I needed to attach a RGB LED to the expansion ports on the electronics board of the printer and two I needed a script to generate a custom GCODE file which could add commands to turn on and off a LED with 3 colors at specific points in space. This script is what brings everything together. I wrote this script in GRASSHOPPER3d a extension of Rhino3d. What this script does is take a 3d model and generate a GCODE file which instead of telling the printer to split plastic it tells it to flicker a LED.
The final process began with getting a 3d scan of my daughter by a professional scanning service.( It was really hard to do that to a 2.5 year old kid ). Then I took the 3d model of her face and processed it in my script to generate the printer GCODE file.
The last step in the process is to point a camera at the printer , put it in bulb mode, press the shutter and press print. When the flickering of the led stops and the printer finishes the light print the camera shutter closes and the magical light painting appears. To make the final video which shows the led drawing in space , I also shot a video of the LED in the process and then processed it in KDENLIVE to get that effect. Also since I needed the light painting to spin I took various shots of the same model by rotating it and repeating the process. As I was too lazy to hold the camera shutter open for prolonged periods of time I automated that process also. I connected the shutter release cable of my camera to the printer and included command in the GCODE file to open and shut the camera shutter at the beginning and the end of a “LIGHT PRINT “
I had initially done this experiment one year back using a single color LED and 3d models I downloaded from the internet. The initial results were very promising hence I decided to extend the experiment to be done using a RGB LED which would in theory would give me 16,777,216 colors .
Light painting has been done ever since cameras have been invented. Initially it was done on film and later with the advent of Dslrs it became possible with digital cameras.
Light painting, or light drawing, is a photographic technique in which exposures are made by moving a hand-held light source while taking a long exposure photograph, either to illuminate a subject or to shine a point of light directly at the camera. Light painting can also describe works where the camera itself is moved during exposure. ( wikipidea )
I had built a Delta printer called the 3DR which is a reprap printer designed by Richard Horne. Since I had built the printer myself it was easy for me to change or add to the electronics. The way the printer mostly works is by reading a GCODE file and following the commands in the file. That’s how most of the reprap printers work. The GCODE file is generated by a software called the SLICER which reads a 3d model file and spits out the GCODE.
So in order to control the LED , one I needed to attach a RGB LED to the expansion ports on the electronics board of the printer and two I needed a script to generate a custom GCODE file which could add commands to turn on and off a LED with 3 colors at specific points in space. This script is what brings everything together. I wrote this script in GRASSHOPPER3d a extension of Rhino3d. What this script does is take a 3d model and generate a GCODE file which instead of telling the printer to split plastic it tells it to flicker a LED.
The final process began with getting a 3d scan of my daughter by a professional scanning service.( It was really hard to do that to a 2.5 year old kid ). Then I took the 3d model of her face and processed it in my script to generate the printer GCODE file.
The last step in the process is to point a camera at the printer , put it in bulb mode, press the shutter and press print. When the flickering of the led stops and the printer finishes the light print the camera shutter closes and the magical light painting appears. To make the final video which shows the led drawing in space , I also shot a video of the LED in the process and then processed it in KDENLIVE to get that effect. Also since I needed the light painting to spin I took various shots of the same model by rotating it and repeating the process. As I was too lazy to hold the camera shutter open for prolonged periods of time I automated that process also. I connected the shutter release cable of my camera to the printer and included command in the GCODE file to open and shut the camera shutter at the beginning and the end of a “LIGHT PRINT “
