some foranges

Pro-crastinating

2012-05-27T14:38:00.003-07:00

If there exists a king of procrastination, it is most certainly me. Seriously, I am a true pro-crastinator. Don't believe it? Check the date of my last post - I've been telling myself: "I'll write a post tomorrow." since that day. Until I came upon this:

My life is now on it's track again. Thank you, internets!

3D Scanning

2011-08-18T01:49:00.000-07:00

An example of real object replication.

3D scanning is a form of analyzing real-world objects or environments to gather data on it's shape. The gathered data is used to create it's digital representation, like the example on the right. This one was 3D printed too (a process I described in my previous post), so now we have an almost exact duplicate, it's just missing some color.

You can see how this process could be used to duplicate your favorite toys, but if any of you are scientists, you could use this technology to create exact replicas of fragile artifacts to display in museums.

But how does it work?
There are many ways to 3D scan an object, some are more expensive, some are faster, but it all depends on your object's shape and size.

time-of-flight scanning

I won't go into details, but one of the main technologies behind it is Time-Of-Flight. The scanner points a laser rangefinder into an object and it measures how much time it takes for the light to hit the object. If you can imagine this process, then you can probably imagine doing it thousands of times for each point of the object. When you have a complete map of how far the points are, you can easily (if you're a computer) put them in a 3D space and there you have it, an object appears. Of course if you have a stationary camera, you have to rotate the object to scan it from all sides. Just for info: Typical time-of-flight 3D laser scanners can measure the distance of 10,000~100,000 points every second. An example of this can be seen on the right.

Kinect
Here came the Microsoft's Kinect. People saw the opportunity right away and hacked it into a 3D scanner. The more Kinects you connect together, the more detailed images you get. I would like to share two videos I found that produce 3D images using kinect. The first one also demos what you can do with a 3D printer:

The second one demostrates a DIY Kinect-powered turntable, which I thought was kind of cool.

There are more and more useful Kinect hacks which you can find on Youtube and which will definitely blow your mind.

All in all, 3D scanning is a very useful technology, not just in object replication, but also in medicine. 3D scanners can help doctors see the detailed insides of your body (brain, heart, etc.), or pregnant women to see their unborn children in 3D (3D ultrasound).

3D Printing

2011-08-15T02:42:00.000-07:00

I always loved the idea of 3D printing. You would create a 3D complex object on your computer - something in the forms of an action figure or a monster, and then just print it out as you would print out a letter on a regular printer. You could easily create a custom army of figures for your children to play with.

3D printed bike

Fortunately, that's not all there is to it, because you can print out almost any shape you can imagine, for instance this 3D printed bicycle on the left. It was made by the EADS, the European aerospace and defence group out of nylon powder which is, according to EADS strong enough to replace steel or aluminium and requires no conventional maintenance or assembly.

Imagine you are riding a bike down the street and suddenly, it breaks. What do you do? Well, you walk to the nearest printer, plug in the USB and there you go, another bike (probably not that easy, but the future is coming).

How does it work?
3D printing is a form of additive manufacturing technology where a three dimensional object is created by laying down successive layers of material. You usually have a powder container (not necessaryly, there can be other materials as well) and a heat source of some kind. The first layer of material is pushed onto the container either manually or by the printer. The heat source now burns the desired area so that the melted powder particles join together. After this happens, another layer of material is applied. This goes on and on until the whole object is printed layer after layer. When done, the excess powder is removed and the object is cleaned and painted. (some printers allow color printing as well - this is done by different combinations of material and laser).

3D printing has actually been around for a decade now, but I hope it will catch on in the future even more, so I can buy my own printer for a reasonable price. There have also been a lot of DIY 3D printers, like this one I found on youtube:

It uses a slightly different kind of material, but the 3D printing technology is basically the same.

Also, there are these cool and awesome 3D printed action figures that I found on Engadet:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/11/visualized-objets-3d-printer-breathes-plastic-life-into-hollyw/

Slow Motion Video

2011-08-10T15:08:00.000-07:00

I was inspired by a Gizmodo's recent article on slow motion videos so I decided to post this.

Phantom v1610

I've always been attracted to high-speed cameras and amazed how they can shoot at 20.000 frames per second, but I've recently heard about the Phantom v1610 camera which can shoot at 1,000,000 frames per second (well okay, the resolution needs to be 128x16, but it's still impressive).

That got me researching a bit more and I found out that the fastest high-speed camera has the ability to take pictures at a speed of 200 million frames per second.

Just to be clear... when you record something at high speed, per say 1500 frames per second, the slow motion effect appears when you play those 1500 frames at a normal speed of 30 frames per second. But if you recorded at a whooping speed of 200 million fps and decided to play it at normal speed, it would take you 77 days to watch the whole recording (77 days to watch the 1 second long footage). Now THAT is slow motion.

Actually, the image above is a video, so if you come back every day for the next 77 days it might change slightly.

If you're interested in this topic, I recommend watching the following video:

Skipping Slow Motion from photography-factory.co.uk on Vimeo.

Also, I found this on Amazon: Casio EX-FH100 10.1MP High Speed Digital Camera with 10x Ultra Wide Angle Zoom with CMOS Shift Image Stabilization and 3.0 inch LCD. It can record at 1,000 fps, which is not bad at all, and it appears to be affordable at $300.

The Tree of Wisdom

2011-08-08T14:49:00.000-07:00

Also, back from holiday (and no, the beach in the previos post was not where I was staying.. can't afford that hehe)!

Holiday

2011-07-23T10:15:00.001-07:00

I'm leaving for a holiday tomorrow, so I won't be posting much for the next two weeks. Have fun everyone!

Google+ for iPhone

2011-07-19T13:18:00.000-07:00

I don't actually own an iPhone, but since all this Google+ hype is at it's best, I'll post this link here.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app...?ls=1&mt=8

It's a preview, but coming really soon to all iPhone users. Now you'll be able to post your favourite pics to this popular social sharing network with a breeze.

Just found that out, so I thought I'd share. So, what do you think about Google+ versus Facebook (yeah, one of these debates again). Who would win in a fight to the death? And no, Chuck Norris doesn't count.

The Beginning

2011-07-18T09:11:00.000-07:00

Taking the tablet for a spin. Let me know what you think :).

A Graphics Tablet

2011-07-17T15:51:00.000-07:00

I got a graphics tablet today. It's a Wacom Bamboo, just like the one on the left. I must say I've always wanted one, so here it is, all shiny and waiting to be drawn on.

The quality is astonishing, I was a bit surprised because I didn't expect as much for a low price, since it's an older model and the cheapest of all Wacom tablets (i think). Anyways, the pen is awesome, it slides on the plate almost like on real paper. The shortcuts on the top though are useless in my opinion - thought I think I'd need to wait some time to get used to them, but for now I'm sticking with the good-old-keyboard-shortcuts because I'm used to the left hand keyboard kungfu in Photoshop :).

The gadget will certainly come in handy at my design work (webpages) or just random sketches that I like to do when I'm bored. For example, here's a quick mockup of the Blogger's logo. Please don't laugh.. it's a work of art you see!

If anyone wants a tablet of their own, here is a newer version of mine on Amazon: Wacom Bamboo Tablet

Oh hey, didn't see you there!

2011-07-17T15:03:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my new blog. What is a forange? It's an orange, but colored fushcia (apparently it's a color starting with an f). There, since we have the greetings out of the way, I can start writing some cool stuff.

The content will probably update a few times per week, sometimes I'll even throw in a comic, but most of the time I'll comment on various events that happened to me in my personal (or professional) life. You can expect stuff from the arts of programming, design, and dissing people that can't drive.

I sincerely hope you enjoy your stay here. Have fun!

forange

some foranges

Pro-crastinating

3D Scanning

Related articles

3D Printing

Related articles

Slow Motion Video

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The Tree of Wisdom

Holiday

Google+ for iPhone

The Beginning

A Graphics Tablet

Oh hey, didn't see you there!