Aurora - laser illuminated dome for AfrikaBurn 2013

[robvdv]

I recently built a custom laser rig as a part of an installation for AfrikaBurn 2013. AfrikaBurn is a Burning Man affiliated event and attracted 7000 people this year. Last year I did this: http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...inated-obelisk

For lasers I used:
8 x M140
8 x P73
2 x 1W DHOM greens

All lasers knife edged, stacked and combined using scavenged Casio parts.

I used three cheap scanner sets so that I could have each colour maxed and still produce full separate patterns.

Electronics:
2 x hacked sound cards
2 x laserboy clones, PCB from Simone (thanks!)
1 x badpip quad driven at 24V

Software:
CSound software synth

The beam was shone through a water lens. Different frequencies created different patterns on the surface of the water. This was then shone through a fisheye lens and onto the inside of an air supported dome.

Pics tell a thousand words, so:
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AfrikaBurn 2013-AAK.JPG
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[discothefunkyhippo]

Absolutely stunning. Thanks for sharing!!!

[Jem]

Simply beautiful. Well done.

I've not heard of using a 'water lens' before, can you elaborate on the technique used?

Cheers

Jem

[planters]

I've not heard of using a 'water lens' before, can you elaborate on the technique used?

Me too! Me too! Please show what you can and tell how you set it up and adjusted it. Are the sounds originating from the music or some other source? And if you were using scanners as well how did they fit into the system? Did you modulate the lasers as well?

[Jem]

Ahhh... See here @ post number 60...

http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...818#post261818

Cheers

Jem

[White-Light]

Ahhh... See here @ post number 60...

http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...818#post261818

Cheers

Jem

post 108 Jem.

Somehow I was expecting water!

[robvdv]

That's it, yeah. I need to do a proper write up at some stage, but quick answers:

Are the sounds originating from the music or some other source?

I used QuteCSound to make a synthesizer: http://qutecsound.sourceforge.net/. I bonded 2 sound cards together under Linux to make a virtual 12 channel sound card. The 12 channels were:
Blue brightness
Red brightness
Green brightness
Blue X (3 sets of galvos)
Blue Y
Red X
Red Y
Green X
Green Y
Speaker 1 (moving the water lens)
Speaker 2
Speaker 3

Frequency and amplitude was controlled by oscillators, LFOs etc.

And if you were using scanners as well how did they fit into the system?

The scanners "painted" the bottom of the water lens.

Did you modulate the lasers as well?

Yes

[planters]

Crikey! I think I'll wait for the write up and follow that rather than try to just "throw one of these together myself".

Thanks

[Displaser]

robvdv,

What an incredible project! I'm looking forward to hearing more about the details as well. It would be great to see this at a LEM some day.

Mucho kudos on this!
Greg

[LaserWizard]

Gorgeous! Thank you -

Tim