Each one of the small squares in this sculpture is actually an LCD cell, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. What you see here is just a small portion of the sculpture that spans multiple floors of the atrium at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. It’s made up of multiple panels hosting a total of 3600 LCD cells. We first saw it way back in April, but now there is a ‘making of’ video which you can see embedded after the break.
The project took about 18 months to complete, starting with a 256 pixel prototype. That served as proof that the non-lit hardware would achieve the look they were going for. From there they designed the code which would generate patterns on the sculpture and used it to drive a digital model (we’d bet that was to get the go-ahead and funding). The fast-motion footage of the three-man assembly line formed when soldering up the circuits is fun to watch, the real nail-biting stuff comes when they start mounting the fragile panels in the space.
[Thanks Stig]
I am quite curious where they got those single transparent LCD pixels.
Wow, that is cool. I love the concept.
Are you thinking full motion “Stained Glass” windows like I am?
I think so, Brain, but how will ever get all those gerbils to start line dancing in the first place?
wait, isn’t this a repost or did I see it somewhere else?
ah yes found it
http://hackaday.com/2012/04/27/gigantic-liquid-crystal-display-is-like-a-giant-calculator/
EDIT: OH sorry I’m stupid for not reading it fully. This is more of an update of that post.
A larger, curvy version of the LCD window walls at the original Star Tours rides at Disney parks, back in 1987.
I went to Disneyland in Anaheim that year. Looooooooooooooooong line for Star Tours and everything else.
The “big concept” of using a motion simulator for a ride was it would be easy and inexpensive to change the ride by changing the video and motion programming.
Twenty Three Years later, *nothing* changed. Same ride it was in 1987. Disney has recently begun overhauling Star Tours at Star Tours: The Adventures Continue. The rides are getting a major hardware upgrade to six axis motion platforms.
Hopefully it won’t take another 23 years for Disney to actually do what they said could be done with the original.
After Universal scrapped the BTTF ride in favor of the simpsons’ variant I’m a bit weary of the process.
I’ve always wondered where they get those LCD elements from.. or if they’re just custom manufacturerd for that project.
Definitely custom. Biggest cost is tooling/setup so only viable for large installations – I’d guess these worked out to something like $5-10 per pixel.
I did the control for this installation using fairly large custom LCDs, which I think were about $15-20 each. http://www.jasonbruges.com/projects/uk-projects/digital-fountain
Very old topic, can you say me the name of the provider of the LCDs panel ? Thank too much :)
I live in Raleigh and was admiring this work of art just a couple weeks ago. Glad to see some more info on it.
I would love to know the details of those panels … they look really dark and very clear …
Details would be great
Here’s some info on making lcd panels it looks feasible if that translated german article is anything to go by – if you can get the materials…