Hackaday Links: March 27, 2011

March 27, 2011 by Mike Szczys 23 Comments

Magnified glasses

A late hacking session, and parts-on-hand came together as the inspiration for [BadWolf’s] magnified glasses with LED lighting.

Pendulum Printer

This orb, when swung like a pendulum, prints images by dropping ink out the bottom. A processing sketch works in conjuction with a Wii Remote and an IR LED in the orb to sense when the print head is in just the right position for dispensing ink.

ITead PCB fab house tips and tricks

[Flemming] uses a PCB fab house called ITead Studio. We hadn’t heard of it before but if you consider giving it a try make sure you look over his tips and tricks about the service before submitting your designs.

Katamari Bookmarklet

[Spi] wrote in to let us know about this ~~Java~~ Bookmarklet he came across that lets you turn any webpage into a Katamari Damacy level. It’s a pretty clever bit of code.

Color-picker pen

Here’s a pen concept inspired by Photoshop. On one end there’s a scanner that lets you pick your color from any physical object. Then just turn it around and write with the exact same color. Now go out and make this reality! [Thanks Frank]

Barcode Challenge – Part 2

October 8, 2009 by Mike Szczys 40 Comments

HaD_barcode

Yesterday we issued a barcode challenge in honor of the Barcode’s birthday. Congratulations to [The Moogle] for winning this challenge. His submission offers a very detailed explanation of how he solved the puzzle using Photoshop, OpenOffice Calc, and some web resources. We’ve got a detailed writeup on it after the break.

Honorable mentions go to [nex] for putting up a Java solution and to [jwmaag] for showing a Python solution. Finally, kudos to all who used a CueCat in one way or another to decode the string. Just having one of those still around is pretty hack-it-y.

Because of the ubiquity of Barcode scanners and online image translation programs the challenge might have been a bit too easy. Do you think you’re up for a greater challenge? Download the new barcode and get to work. This one should be quite a bit harder to decipher. Once again, leave a comment that includes the message stored in the Barcode. Please remember, only entries that solve the puzzle and include a full description of the process will be considered. Good luck, and let the games begin.

Update: It only took [JP] 19 minutes to post a correct solution to the new Barcode. Great work!

Continue reading “Barcode Challenge – Part 2” →

Removing Fisheye Distortion

December 21, 2008 by Eliot 14 Comments

fisheye

Reader [alex] had a commercial plugin for fisheye lens correction and wondered exactly what kind of magic was behind it. Was it actually doing line detection? He dropped in a square grid to see what it spit out. The warped result indicated that the transformation was completely independent of the photo’s content. Using this result as a guide he was able to create a similar transform using Warp and save it as a script. The script generates almost identical results and now he knows exactly how little magic is involved.

Guide To Creating Small Planets

July 8, 2008 by Juan Aguilar 9 Comments

We at Hackaday often dream of having our own personal planets where we wouldn’t have to deal with other people, but our spaceships aren’t quite ready. While we figure that out, you can do the next best thing: render small planets using Photoshop or GIMP with a few other graphics apps and this guide to making small planets like the one pictured above.