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Mirror, Mirror 132

Posted by michael from the doing-it-the-hard-way dept.
PSaltyDS writes "A friend forwarded this to me... don't know where he got it from. Daniel Rozin, Director Of Research and adjunct professor at ITP, Tisch School Of The Arts, NYU, and owner of SmoothWare Design, has built a Mirror-like display as an art project out of shiny balls. This seems to be a refinement of a 1999 Wooden Mirror project that is also pretty cool."
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Mirror, Mirror More

Mirror, Mirror

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  • Pretty cool (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15, 2003 @10:09PM (#6709877)

    this is a pretty cool art project, good to see examples of technology creating art, or is that art creating technology

    • "this is a pretty cool art project, good to see examples of technology creating art, or is that art creating technology"

      What it's missing, of course, is the poncy art-wank which normally goes along with this sort of thing. You know - something along the lines of "forces the viewer to question his place in the universe" or "suggests that perhaps real beauty really IS more than just skin deep" or whatever.

  • technology (Score:4, Funny)

    by spotlight2k3 ( 652521 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @10:10PM (#6709880) Journal
    the things we can do with thousands of simple objects.

  • Zit Popping (Score:3, Funny)

    by beacher ( 82033 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @10:13PM (#6709899) Homepage
    Nothing like trying to pop a zit in a mirror that looks like it's 2 DPI. On the flip side, when it hits the mirror, you REALLY know it.
    -B

  • Thats just great! (Score:5, Funny)

    by fiftyLou ( 472705 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @10:14PM (#6709906)
    Thanks, thanks a hell of a lot, you bastards.

    My gf walks into the room and I'm sitting here with a moz download dialog: "Saving 79% of shinyballs.mov"

  • Mirror mirror (Score:4, Funny)

    by duffhuff ( 688339 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @10:14PM (#6709907)
    I hope this guy's web server has a mirror or two

  • very cool (Score:4, Interesting)

    by squarefish ( 561836 ) * on Friday August 15, 2003 @10:15PM (#6709910)
    but it's funny how mechanical the description is- the details are more industrial then I had expected. the acutal sound of the machine gave me the first impression of nuematics in action- I"ve worked in the paste with several different nuematic systems and I honestly thought the activity of the balls represented a nuematic system also.

    so, when will they create an 'over the bed' version of this?

    • Re:very cool (Score:3, Informative)

      by cybermace5 ( 446439 )
      Pneumatics would be one way of doing it, but servo valves are expensive and that's a lotta tubes!

      I'm positive they used RC airplane servos with a rod from the bellcrank to the ball. That's how they got such fluid and fast motion. You can pick up servos from Servo City [servocity.com] for less than nine bucks each. They are pretty simple to control with a microcontroller as well. I'm impressed with the wiring behind the display...what a nightmare!
    • so, when will they create an 'over the bed' version of this?

      If they do they need to make sure they put that sticker on it that says "objects in mirror are larger than they appear."

  • I like the wooden better (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mnmn ( 145599 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @10:17PM (#6709924) Homepage
    Im thinking it might be nice to build a much higher res version of the wooden mirror with each woodchip being say 5mm^ so it really looks like a monochrome mirror. Instead of attaching 8 motors to each MCU, you can use a 32-bit MCU and address ALL the motors using the big addressing range and a fast multiplexer. That will allow minimization of the whole structure.

    For the motors, the 'electronic muscle' available from jameco.com can be used for cheapicity and simplicity, again to increase the resolution rather than expensive motors.

    Four of them can be lined against an elevator wall to seriously impress or scare patrons. Better still make one of them a mirror and display Evil Dead on the other three starting at 2 am. Make sure a hidden camera records the reactions.

    Now I wanna make one.

    • Re:I like the wooden better (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Now I wanna make one.
      Sell 'em, I'd buy one, porn on that would rock

    • Re:I like the wooden better (Score:5, Informative)

      by Alien Being ( 18488 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @10:33PM (#6709992)
      It looks like muscle wire would be to slow. Max cycle rate seems to be about 1/second. Electromagnets would probably work better, like those green flip-dot highway signs.
      • The problem with electromagnets is that they can only pull the balls back (assuming they're actually rolling balls, no bar magnets with rounded ends). Thus, you need something to push the balls forwards again when you turn off the magnet. Gravity (angled tubes) might be a bit slow, but I suspect that some springs could do the job nicely...

    • Re:I like the wooden better (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cybermace5 ( 446439 ) <g.ryan@macetech.com> on Friday August 15, 2003 @11:11PM (#6710171) Homepage Journal
      He's using RC servos and lots of microcontrollers because he has to provide a PWM signal for each servo. That enables him to set a grayscale level instead of on-off. Nitinol 'muscle wire' is a little more difficult to set to a length other than 'short' (spring tension brings it back). Also, the servos will stay in one spot even when they are receiving no PWM signal. A nitinol wire would need constant PWM to hold a position against the return spring.

      Granted, he probably could do with less microcontrollers and a creative strobing scheme to activate rows of servos in turn. But that would be difficult to get right, and might not be as responsive.
    • He's probably using a "Mini SSC 2" (www.seetron.com) for his microcontroller. Factor in the ease of purchasing a bulk of these very popular and proven devices and the time spent in designing, testing and soldering your own is probably more expensive.

    • Re:I like the wooden better (Score:5, Funny)

      by Xzzy ( 111297 ) <sether@@@tru7h...org> on Friday August 15, 2003 @11:22PM (#6710224) Homepage
      I was considering doing something like this, except with little beams of light like lasers or something. The beams would be aimed at a photosensitive plate that left a residual glow, which is what the end user sees.

      I figure if the technology advances enough, we may even be able to pack hundreds of pixels into a single square inch! ;)

      I think trying to up the resolution would take away from the artsy feel of the project, and turn it instead into a very poor monitor. The act of watching the wood chips move is also probably enhanced by their size, and likely quite fun to watch.
      • I figure if the technology advances enough, we may even be able to pack hundreds of pixels into a single square inch! ;)


        hmmm. looks like they already have... :)

        [http://www.spie.org/web/oer/october/oct98/tv.ht ml ] www.spie.org
        some nice piccies there showing how it's done...
    • so do I, the softer coloring and the irregularities of the grain give Wooden Mirror a much more welcoming feeling that disguises the electromechanical nature of the machinery.

      Your idea of an artpiece using smaller blocks to achieve a smoother appearance could be enhanced by using woods of differing shades or hues on different sides of the blocks to allow finer control of the rendered image or, in the case of hues, allow the mood of the image to change as well as the pattern and contrast.

      As the web images

  • donkey mirror (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    heres a mirror (no pun intended)

    donkey network
    ed2k://|file|shinyballs.mov|18268899|55AC 7A46537F8 88102EE73772D204675|/
  • This display is cool, but practical applications are few and far between, right now. Probably we'll need a display like this. I can see it does have the advantage of keeping the last image it had if it were to lose power, but it prolly has lousy refresh and response times. It's e-ink!
    • This display is cool, but practical applications are few and far between

      Uh... That's what makes it art. That's what makes us human. You should watch Equilibrium sometime. (it has some kick ass action too)
  • Having an art-technology degree myself, I can say that this is some seriously cool art. I would like to see a show where there were a number of different materialed mirror machines.. cool! :)

  • Now that... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @10:28PM (#6709973) Homepage
    ..has to be the total absolute ultimate whiz-bang pinnacle of lo-res graphics. Atari 400, eat your heart out!

  • monochrome super pixelly display? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ddd2k ( 585046 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @10:31PM (#6709986) Homepage
    its like deja vu all over again....
  • This is an interesting application of current technology in facinating ways.

    I think we're getting to a point where advancements in technology itself will slow down, but the creativity behind it will fuel new inventions for years to come. /ramble

  • Multi-Channel motion control (Score:3, Informative)

    by somethinsfishy ( 225774 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @10:38PM (#6710015)
    His system has one motor per "pixel". To produce the grey scale, he has to treat each pixel as an axis of position control. the two ways this is usually done is with servo's can do this with position feedback on the load (ala model-airplane servos), or with steppers which can be more finicky, but requre no feedback sensor. In either case, it wasn't trivial to build all the "pixels" and then get them under control. I'll bet it wasn't cheap either.

    • Re:Multi-Channel motion control (Score:5, Interesting)

      by cybermace5 ( 446439 ) <g.ryan@macetech.com> on Friday August 15, 2003 @11:03PM (#6710128) Homepage Journal
      $8,000 dollars for the servo motors alone, the cheapest I can find. I'm sure if you were ordering 900 you could get a discount. The rest of it looks like about 450 feet of aluminum tubing, 10,800 feet of wire, some black paint, about 32 microcontrollers, a PC, and a video camera. And of course, 900 chrome-plated balls, which I'm not sure where to find. Really cheap plastic stick-shift knobs?

      Wasn't cheap, but probably less than a new car. Not counting labor, of course.
      • And of course, 900 chrome-plated balls, which I'm not sure where to find.

        I'm thinking chrome Christmas ornaments which are really cheap the week after Christmas. They come in other colors as well such as gold, green, blue and red.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Servo motors are probably not necessary for this project: the precision doesn't have to be high, and cheap is important. There's lots of ways to use 10c motors: an optical interrupter wheel would be best, but it would probably be about as good to just cal the mirrors up somehow. Over time, they would drift: one would need some way of running them to their end stop so that they could be set right again.

        Most commercial robot toys (Furby etc) dont bother with servo motors, for similar reasons.

      • And of course, 900 chrome-plated balls, which I'm not sure where to find.

        Two words: Ben. Wa.
    • I wonder if he considered using a solenoid (coil) to get the same effect? If the ball were sprung loaded then the position of the ball would be determined solely by the voltage - no need for fancy control systems.
  • ... by their network: delivering up 18MB movie files and no discernable slashdot effect.
    • I think that is because 75% of the slashdot crowd are on an airplane or in their car travelling to university which start up soon. Have I been the only one to notice that regular stories seem to have a much lower post count than during the school year since finals in may?
      • It was freshmen registration yesterday. Later today (Saturday) we go back in to assist with dorm hookup. Yes, that's right, at my college, you get all the hand holding you need, so as not to drive down retention and lose all that juicy tuition money. This, of course, means that I can only devote the proper amount of concentration to /. at 3am.
  • for outdoor displays like football stadiums.

    Mirrored display would be ideal for outdoors.

  • Mirror, Mirror? (Score:3, Funny)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @10:45PM (#6710045) Homepage
    So... can it display a picture of evil Spock, with a moustache and a goatee? [goateestyle.com]
  • "and you can kiss my shiny metal spheroids"
  • You can bite my shiny metal balls
  • News for nerds, mmm shiney things for the rest of us

    I want a hex-pod of those things. We could put people inside and drive them crazy with their own reflection - oh.. that already happens.

  • Sense of being in a room with it. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mattkime ( 8466 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @11:16PM (#6710199)
    This just isn't something that is communicated well over the web.

    Over time, it tends to serve a function more like having a small waterfall in the room - it adds a sense of life.

    At first when people see it, they do the usual thing of walking up to it and moving back and forth in front of it. (Dance! Dance!) The entertainment value in this is quite small and wears off quickly.

    Yet when people stop looking at it and live with it there is still the background noise and movement which serves to soften the environment and make it feel more alive. I find this to be the most satisfying part of the piece.
    • It seems more organic, in its frame it looks almost like a piece of furniture. To me it looks like something you'd see in a wizard's study. Just from the movie the sound was neat, it must be amazing in real life.

      Do you know where the wooden mirror is located?

      • Re:I prefer the wooden mirror. (Score:5, Informative)

        by mattkime ( 8466 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @11:46PM (#6710302)
        721 Broadway

        I lived in that building for three years studying photography just a couple of floors up. Once for a class we took a peak at the projects on that floor. Overall, its hard to tell whether the robots or grad students are winning.

        During the dot com boom, studying there was seen as a way to catapult yourself into a higher tax bracket. I doubt thats true anymore.
    • Yet when people stop looking at it and live with it there is still the background noise and movement which serves to soften the environment and make it feel more alive.

      I think it'd be really cool to have two of them on opposite walls, facing each other. If someone walked by every once in a while, that should add some life to it for quite a while, depending on how long the mirrors' reaction times are. Wave your arm in front of it, then watch the reflections propagate between them for half an hour...

  • Trash Mirror (Score:3, Informative)

    by Akai ( 11434 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @11:28PM (#6710243) Homepage Journal
    I saw his Trash Mirror [nyu.edu] at the American Museum of the Moving Image [ammi.org] in Queens. Very cool installation, and a wonderful geek-friendly museum, worth the visit if your from or in NYC.

  • Nice to see geeks branching out (Score:3, Insightful)

    by whatch durrin ( 563265 ) on Friday August 15, 2003 @11:53PM (#6710321)
    It's always nice to see technology applied to art.

    Ok, so it's not cutting edge stuff, but it sure does beat some of the dry, mundane applications we engineers use technology for on a daily basis.

    On the other hand, engineers sometimes get more of an emotion from opening a control cabinet and seeing all the components neatly laid out, the wires nicely routed through ductwork, and little blinky LEDs. Not that I would, but...

  • This is nothing new- basically pinscreen [writer2001.com] animation (the first of which, Night on Bald Mountain [imdb.com], was made by inventor Alexander Alexeieff [imdb.com] in 1933) with much larger "pixels", using chrome balls instead of pins, and much lower resolution. Actual pinscreen animations like Mindscape [imdb.com] have a much higher [cmm.onf.ca] resolution, and look almost like lithographs.

    Of course, images on the pinscreen have to be manually "drawn" in using rollers & hand tools, which takes a considerable amount of time.

    (IAAAM - I Am An Anima
  • That's amazingly cool. It's a bit of a double mirror. It's reflective, and then you can point the image capture at you and have it shaped like you while you''re looking at the reflection of you in the balls. I wonder if we can figure out a way to get any more ways of mirroring involved there. What would happen if you pointed the camera at the mirror itself?
  • or is the last picture on that link showing a guy flipping us off? It definitely looks like it!
  • ...also interesting is the fact that this display serves as a mirror in the way it reflects the viewer.
    Man, I have to shave. I'm starting to look like Che Guevara.
  • There seems to be a stuck pixel in the demo video.

    I would check the return policy on this thing before looking into buying one....

  • Rated M for mature (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Warning to younger viewers. This site features a 2-3 minute movie of an individual playing with his balls.
  • I'd like to have one in my office and hook it into a vcr with a tape of some preset images, or into a keyboard (musical type). A keyboard reminds me of "Close Encounters".
  • ...what's the refresh rate on that thing?

    Will I be able to run Quake3 at a decent fps?

    Dammit they should know to post important info like this...and no dammit I'm not going to rtfa.
  • I prefer the blind guardian song [blind-guardian.com]
  • Artists with a bent for electronics and physics are rare. Or is it the other way around? I wonder what he could do with small prisms?
  • The sound seems more pleasing, and the resolution seems higher somehow.

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