Strobe lights are cool, but they flash everything at once. Lasers are cool, but they illuminate only a point at a time. Could these be combined?

The ILS is a bank of lasers which focus on the same point from different directions. They move very fast, sweeping across an entire room in graduated rows, like a typewriter.

The intention here is for these rows to go by so fast that it produces the illusion that the room is lit with continuous light. I suspect that residual images will allow the eye to fake together images of what is in the room. The strange part is when something three-dimensional is illuminated. I am not exactly sure what an object (say a cube) will look like when the multiple lasers converge on it. It may trick the eye into putting together some unusual images.
-- bungston, Dec 27 2005

Animated walking dead video http://www.youtube....1u8&feature=related
It is a video game! And lots of those Exorcist quick flashes of scary stuff. [bungston, Mar 01 2012]

Sumbinial creepy face in Exorcist http://www.youtube....watch?v=TD0RJ_iuBPo
Some people were ticked off at this, as I recall. Now you see stuff like this in the supermarket. [bungston, Mar 01 2012]

Hmm. Not seeing this one.
-- bristolz, Dec 27 2005


Welders goggles not optional.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Dec 27 2005


// I suspect that residual images //...will be permanent.
-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Dec 27 2005


For simplicity, let us assume three lasers at the sides and center of the wall. Imagine the floor parceled out into columns and rows: little squares/ The lasers are along the wall parallel to floor row 1. The three lasers focus on A1 and sweep down row 1, back up row 2, down row 3, up row 4, etc - very quickly.

I understand that the electron gun in a TV does soemthing similar, putting together a picture by scanning across the screen very quickly.
-- bungston, Dec 27 2005


Ah! I get it!

+
-- DesertFox, Dec 28 2005


What is the advantage compared to the standard laser scanners, which draw pictures? I think I am missing something.
-- Ling, Dec 28 2005


I'm with [Ling], I think.

Are you drawing a raster with mechanical XY scanners? In essence, using an inherently vector based method to generate continuous tone imagery?

One advantage CRTs have, even though they use an XY beam, is that the imaging surface, phosphors, have persistence which helps tie together the image.
-- bristolz, Dec 28 2005


//phosphors, have persistence // So does retinal scar tissue.
-- AbsintheWithoutLeave, Dec 28 2005


[bris], I think the residual image from your eye / brain is used in place of a persistent imaging surface in this idea. I think.

//which focus on the same point from different directions// //I am not exactly sure what an object (say a cube) will look like when the multiple lasers comverge on it//

All lasers still focus at the same point when a 3D object is encountered? How so? It is difficult to imagine this working with anything other than an empty round room.
-- Shz, Dec 28 2005


/I think the residual image from your eye / brain is used in place of a persistent imaging surface/ - Yes! Well said, [Shz]. That is exactly right. [Ling], this is for use in a room - maybe in a disco or a science museum. The only moving parts are the lasers.

No, the lasers cannot focus on a common point when a 3D shape is encountered. They continue on their path. I imagine that, at slow speed, this would look like bands of light sweeping up the object, each at a different height depending on the laser generating it. Sort of like a bar code scanner. I envision this being faster than that. I am not sure what composite image would be formed from an object incrementally lit from different angles. How would the residual images be integrated by the eye?
-- bungston, Dec 28 2005


Integration from the eye would evoke a range of mental sensation, ranging from the sublime (migraines) to the elated (seizures). This could, however, serve as backlighting or base illumination to a more contrasting display such as floating strobes or cannon shot flashes.
-- reensure, Dec 28 2005


//No, the lasers cannot focus on a common point when a 3D shape is encountered.//

In that case this is very very cool. You would have to derive the layout using variations from perceived straight-line sweeps. Depth perception would be a function of variation change speed. Moving around to get a better feel for depth significantly changes the appearance of objects, yet clarifies them in your mind. The slower the sweep, the more challenging it is to picture the room. I'll risk the headache. Bun.
-- Shz, Dec 28 2005


you'd need a really fast traverse system...

I don't see the point, other than the novelty of having a room "lit up" by 1+ 2mm dots of light...
-- cpf, Jul 03 2007


/I don't see the point/

If you slowed them down enough, eventually you would.
-- bungston, Jul 03 2007


I was thinking of this scheme again. Constructed to work in real life it would be fairly pointless and also pretty fussy.

But it would be easier to do with animation, and could be very creepy - a black room the heroine must enter with the sweeping thin bar of light. Then things start to move around in the room. The effect would be kind of like the creepyness with a strobe light in that the contiguity of motion we usually expect is gone. This would also have discontiguity of form which could be even creepier.

Thinking about how such a sequence would go, the strobe effect could also make an appearance, as gunfire would illuminate the room for a split second and allow Exorcist-style subliminal scaries.

I am sure my thoughts ventured into this scary room after seeing a trailer for the animated Walking Dead show, which looks like a video game to me. Let me look at that again and link it up.
-- bungston, Mar 01 2012



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