The scale of this project is daunting. Each of the three white walls seen in the image above is made up of thousands of oblong square blocks. The blocks move independently and turn the room into an undulating 3D display.
If it had only been the demonstration video we might have run this as a “Real or Fake” post, but we’re certain this is real. Each pixel is made of what looks like a foam block mounted on a stepper-motor-driven linear actuator. So basically this must have set the world record for the CNC machine with the most axes. The motors make for very accurate and smooth motion, and the control software lets them draw shapes, words, animated objects, and the like. But the one side effects that we absolutely adore is the sound all of these motors make when running. After the break you can see a demo video and a ‘making of’ clip.
The installation is the work of the Jonpasang art collective and is installed as a Hyundai exhibit at an expo in Korea.
Demo Video:
Making of Video:
[via Design Boom and Creative Applications]
Glados approves
My thought exactly!
Impressive.
Sounds a bit like a wind harp.
And it’s not only the walls. There seems to be some kind of motion sensing as well. Look how the light follows the person walking through the room in the middle of the video.
I can’t be the only one who wants to see Conway’s Life game on this “display”?
or tetris.
Why stop there? Super Mario Bros……
Ahhhhh, this is soooo coooool! :-)
Those bastards stole my panels! Where’s my lemons!
I want to see Tetris!
Make this strong enough and in the floor too. Instant table and chairs when you need them. Need a desk? One grows out of the floor. Need shelves? They grow out of the wall.
Cool. Lets see, how much are those stepper motors, acme screws and nuts? Come on lottery win!
Air compressor, lots of hoses, foam blocks mounted on springs to retract in, and computer controlled air valves to push the pixel blocks out. Cheaper than all those stepper motors.
Love the post and like the idea of doing a cheaper+smaller version but:
Where do you get your cheap computer controlled air valves from that cost less than stepper motors? Can’t find any myself.
Imagine a morphing rock climbing wall… you have to not only see the best path available, maybe even apparent patterns in the appearance/disappearance, but move quickly before it changes and your path is gone.
To make it REALLY challenging.. no safety harness :-X
I love that this is a car show… because frankly Hyundai cars are boring as hell so we need to do SOMETHING to get people interested :)
I was disappointed that we didn’t see RGB color changes from inside the blocks.
I don’t think the effect would have been as cool. Part of the effect is the amount of shadow, with distance out being able to graduate that effect.
If the blocks were lit it would look like a normal LED pixel wall.
Then I saw this in a lower comment…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il_uF0jEAlE
Anyone else notice the stuck pixel to the left of the camera? :P
looks expenxive.
lets get some hobbyservos, arduinos and cardboardboxes and build our own…..
Fucking Epic!!! Don’t normally swear to express myself, but in this instance…..
Nice!!!! I want my den lined with these!
Very cool in the same way a water printer is cool… I love the sound too, it strikes an interesting chord when they all run and reverbs nicely in the room. I wonder if they considered the sound in the planning or if that was one of those things that “just goes surprisingly right” on some builds.
Like [raged], I too would have liked to have seen a single LED in each block or something like that. But then I don’t have any builds near about as cool so whadoIknow.
Amon Tobin did the “fake” version of this absolutely gorgeously.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWai4UZ0OqI
Someone said there would be cake. Where is the cake?
Minecrafted.
Pistons?
Sticky pistons?
How about combining it with a projector?
Though it would be difficult to adjust as the light beams would have to be orthogonal to the pixel-blocks to avoid distortion.
They beat you to it and already have one on this display. I’ll look for the other video link.
Found this. Probably not what you were thinking but they do have a projector on it and it could be setup to take advantage of the depth a lot more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il_uF0jEAlE&feature=player_embedded#!
The block on the left wall near the camera gives new meaning to “stuck pixel”.
AWESOME!!!!! every home should have one!!!
Next they need to use it to make the world’s largest stepper-motor orchestra!
Would actually be able to address a real problem in common-use concert halls. The ideal acoustics for a space are different for a violin quartet, an orchestra, and a live musical. This would be an awesome technology to allow on-the-fly changes!
Amazing, I’m thinking a room full of columns with these blocks to make an on the fly reconfigurable life sized maze.
Dr. Wily approves.
I totally expected a face to pop out of the wall at some point.
This is very cool, and it makes me wonder if some clever addressing mechanism coupled with a redesign of each pixel’s physical drive mech(pneumatic, hydraulic, etc.) could greatly simplify the design and build while reducing the number of moving parts…
I wouldn’t say the sound is a side effect, it fits perfectly.
laughed at the “dead” pixels.
The amount of applications for this (many already mentioned above) are amazing.
Linear actuators are
NOT cheap.
http://vimeo.com/48285842
video post of how it was made
reminds me a bit of the displays in Bruce Sterlings “The Difference Engine”
Finally, something I can do with the stepper motors from all the old printers I have laying around.
Reminds me of the crossword puzzle room in the movie Toys.
WOOOOT!!!
Test Rooms!
I wonder why they didn’t fix the 2 broken ones, you’d think they had slot-in replacements.
Maybe they didn’t pay for the extra pixel-error insurance :)
It might just be tought to lean a ladder on a bunch of moving foam blocks.