What would you do if you had access to an industrial ABB IRB 6640 robot? We’d probably make a giant 3D printer, but if you’re [Jeff Crossman] and [Kevyn McPhail], you’d make one of the most advanced light painting setups we’ve ever seen.
The setup itself is really quite simple — a single RGB LED is connected to a Teensy microcontroller on a tool-head for the robot — controlling the robot is the hard (fun?) part. To create the images, [Jeff] had several students come in to have their photographs taken using a Microsoft Kinect. This allowed him to create an RGB point cloud for the robot to recreate.
Using Rhino he created the tool paths required for the robot to build up a floating 3D image of the students for the camera taking the long exposure. Each demonstration made use of ~5000 points, which takes the robot arm about 25 minutes to place.
It’s a fascinating video, and yes it does seem like a bit of overkill, but hey — why not?
ABB robots have also been used to make metal-based 3D printers like the MX3D-Metal project…
That is a really novel idea. I like it!
1. The “voxels” seem a bit too discrete and widely spaced. Is that the limit of the arm’s positional accuracy, or a design choice? I was expecting holograms of people. Maybe try interpolating the LED’s color while moving from point to point instead of shutting it off.
2. Instead of those ridiculous flickering GIFs, why not post some actual stereo pairs? Some of us have the ability to view them and see real depth.
3. @HaD: I’ll see your giant 3D printer idea, and raise you a router attachment for 5DOF carving ;) I’ve seen a video of this, but I don’t have a link handy.
EDIT: Found one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr04DD46OSY Note: loud video alert!
„Most Advanced“ not so much ;)
4 Years ago they did Light Writing with 6 Industrial Robots at Trafalgar Square in London. My Blogposting from back then is in german, but you’ll get the idea: http://www.crackajack.de/2010/09/18/lightpainting-industrial-robots-invade-trafalgar-square/