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Thread: Glow in the Dark Lasering (The Next Generation)

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    Default Glow in the Dark Lasering (The Next Generation)

    Hello Good (and not so good ) Laser People!

    As some of you know, I've been working on trying to advance glow in the dark projector builds and the associated artwork for the past couple years. I've made some advancements since I last posted on this topic about 18 months ago, so I thought I'd share where I've gotten to.

    In short, after several variations of projector builds I have started building combo-projectors that can do RGB as well as glow in the dark 405nm work. Now sure, you could just swap out your 450nm diodes out with 405nm and call it a day. My approach is slightly more complicated than that. My goal has been to be able to do Glow In the Dark (GITD) artwork and quality RGB graphics on the same surface. Swapping out your blues with 405nm diodes wouldn't allow you to do graphics with blue without leaving streaks . . and we can't have that! After trials with different approaches, I built this projector.

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    This projector features a 473nm single mode diode for blue graphics. Even a static beam of 473nm is almost completely non-luminescent on high quality glow in the dark paint. Of course reds and greens have no luminescent effect on GITD paint, so streakless RGB graphics are a done-deal!

    This model also features CT-6210 galvos with the Catweasel amps from Medialas, so 40Kpps wide graphics are achievable. For glow in the dark, I have focused and unfocused 405nm sources so I can do GITD artwork that has soft fades, fills, as well as tight lines. I believe these fills and soft brushed effects are really useful to add depth to GITD artwork. This allows us laserists to do what the GITD street artists do with 405nm flashlights, but faster, with the push of a button, and with a level of detail you simply can't do by hand.

    To switch between GITD and regular RGB graphics, I've been employing DMX switchers built into the projector. This avoids the whole use of deep blue ILDA lines and such. I have also built a version that has manual control of the RGB/GITD option or DMX control if you'd prefer.

    I'm still a bit of a newb at utilizing this approach to create GITD art, but here's a few examples of what I've been doing:

    (This one uses three GITD projectors to draw the artwork.)

    (This is a single GITD projector.)

    (This uses three GITD projectors.)

    (This is a single GITD projector.)

    and finally this complicated piece which has 45,000 hand traced points (no interpolation) being drawn with three projectors:


    Anyway, I'm having fun with this stuff and incorporating it into shows in my home environment. I'll post some of that work soon.

    Thanks for reading!

    -David
    Last edited by dkumpula; 07-17-2018 at 03:42.
    "Help, help, I'm being repressed!"

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    That is really cool.

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    Wow wow wow...... bring it to selem.

    An idea you could just swap the 445for the 405 so long as you project onto cloth it with downshift to about 470nm.

    Also there are ways to hit the screen with light to erase it all at once .i thing it’s either Ir or uv that quenches the glow.

    point is you could start with a full glow and erase for a negative or combine it to make chasing streaks and such.

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    Thanks, guys! I think this is fun, stuff. I will have a 10'x10' screen to project onto at SELEM as well as 3 or more GITD projectors on hand.

    Quote Originally Posted by kecked View Post
    An idea you could just swap the 445for the 405 so long as you project onto cloth it with downshift to about 470nm.
    Using 445nm on GITD paint is disappointing. Using a lot of it makes it very bright on a white GITD surface, which messes with your ability to appreciate the glow. Even with fog, you can hardly see 1W of 405nm when it isn't projecting in your direction (In my case I'm projecting across the room left to right and right to left.) so the drawings just kind of mysteriously appear on the projection surface. 445nm is also less reactive than 405nm mw-for-mw making it fade relatively fast in comparison.

    Also there are ways to hit the screen with light to erase it all at once .i thing it’s either Ir or uv that quenches the glow.

    point is you could start with a full glow and erase for a negative or combine it to make chasing streaks and such.
    Yeah, good thought. LaserCo brought that idea up a while ago when I was exploring erasing with various wavelengths. After many trials, I found erasing less than rewarding. Erasing the cheap zinc sulfide paint is easy and relatively fast with the right frequency of IR, but zinc sulfide fades pretty fast on its own so you'd have to erase really fast before the base charge surface faded on its own. Oh, and aligning IR and 405nm in a projector is a PITA. I spent many hours to get that right.

    Alternatively, erasing the Earth based aluminate paints (the expensive stuff) is possible with deep red, but its reaaalllly sloooooow compared to the charge speed. Some sci-fun places have "shadow booths" where you get hit with a point spot of UV so there is a distinct shadow on a GITD medium. They erase the surface with a ton of deep but still visible red after the people have left the projection area. I plan to implement this approach to erase my walls, but that's a project for the coming year. I also discovered accidentally that certain frequencies of IR can charge the Earth based aluminate paints, albeit not much.

    I look forward to chatting with you about this in less than a month!

    -David
    "Help, help, I'm being repressed!"

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    Quote Originally Posted by kecked View Post
    Wow wow wow...... bring it to selem.
    HAHAH! Dude, DK doesn't even have a say in this anymore. He's been doing the glow-in-the-dark stuff at SELEM for a couple years now, but after he demo'ed his latest work at FLEM last month we pretty much told him "You are *REQUIRED* to bring this to SELEM and do a presentation on it again. If you refuse, we will come to your house and kidnap both you and the projectors and display screens."

    Fortunately, he was already planning to do exactly that, so we won't have to go all Delta-Force on his ass.

    David - thinking about setting up a demo area for you in the entrance area behind the lighting/sound booths at the Auditorium (where the doors open to the street), because it's darker there than anywhere else in the gallery. Plus we can still do the tripod thing we talked about if that works out.

    Adam

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    This is very cool. It's mesmerizing to watch. Can't wait to see it at SELEM!

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    Thanks, guys!

    I don't know if anyone will be interested, but those of you planning to attend SELEM, I will have this 10 foot by 10 foot drape covered in glow in the dark paint for people to try their hand at GITD art. Aron (Lumia) did some amazing complicated raster images last year on smaller panels I brought and I hope the larger canvas will open the door for additional GITD fun.

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    For the actual drawing, I will have a few glow in the dark laser projectors and a few UV flashlights and UV pointers. To get past the easy smiley faces and _ _ _ _ pics, I welcome attendees to bring their own laser images to project. I will have LSX and a DAC on-hand and can import any image in ILDA format. You are welcome to bring your own PC and software/DAC if you can't export to ILDA format.

    If you have your own software, I suggest drawing only part of the image at any one time. The galvos on some of the projectors can't exceed more than 24kpps and it just looks better to have a slower reveal. Different programs call this different things such as "scan-in/scan-out", "scan limit", or something else. (Please no static tight beams as they will burn through the pricey drape.)

    As far as the projectors go, if you want to capture just tight lines, draw in blue. If you want to draw wider, softer images or fill a space, use the green channel. (The green channel is set to about 4-6 times wider than blue.) For lines that fade out on either edge, combine blue and green. All projectors are analogue modulated, so you can do brighter and dimmer sections as you wish.

    The red channel will project red so you can easily combine GITD alongside traditional graphics. (At least some of the projectors can also do regular RGB graphics on top of GITD images, but then we get into DMX switching and other stuff that is probably too complicated for now . . )

    In a fully dark room, you have about 2 minutes before what you drew fades relative to stuff that is just drawn. Each image in a fully dark room will persist for at least 10 minutes. We won't have a fully dark space, so I'd shoot to draw the entire pic in 1 minute or repeat it several times for a longer glow.

    Again, I don't know if anyone will want to play, but if you do, the "sandbox will be open".

    I look forward to seeing many of you soon!

    -David
    "Help, help, I'm being repressed!"

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    I'm still trying to wrap my head around how you are actually "drawing" the picture. You've explained it to me sorta but, I'm anxious to actually sit and watch how that part actually works. Another words, how are you telling the scanners to scribble their way around the drawing for it to appear.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bradfo69 View Post
    I'm still trying to wrap my head around how you are actually "drawing" the picture. You've explained it to me sorta but, I'm anxious to actually sit and watch how that part actually works. Another words, how are you telling the scanners to scribble their way around the drawing for it to appear.
    Hi Brad!

    I'll explain it in detail at SELEM, but here's a quick explanation: First, take a frame consisting of say 10,000 points. You then tell your chosen software package to start by only showing points 1 to 100. Then you have it advance to points 2-101, 3-102 and so forth until it completes by drawing points 9,901-10,000. Different programs call this different things, but I think this is traditionally referred to as Scan-In / Scan-Out. I'm sure Beyond can do this as well as LSX, Mamba, Phoenix and probably most of the medium sized software offerings.

    If I'm not being clear, I'm sure we can get there in a few weeks!

    -David
    "Help, help, I'm being repressed!"

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    i had no idea you could do that with LSX!

    i would have cheated by moving black masking objects around.

    Quote Originally Posted by dkumpula View Post
    Hi Brad!

    I'll explain it in detail at SELEM, but here's a quick explanation: First, take a frame consisting of say 10,000 points. You then tell your chosen software package to start by only showing points 1 to 100. Then you have it advance to points 2-101, 3-102 and so forth until it completes by drawing points 9,901-10,000. Different programs call this different things, but I think this is traditionally referred to as Scan-In / Scan-Out. I'm sure Beyond can do this as well as LSX, Mamba, Phoenix and probably most of the medium sized software offerings.

    If I'm not being clear, I'm sure we can get there in a few weeks!

    -David
    suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness.

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