Diffuser Screen for Pixel Bars

occhristmas

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Jun 13, 2010
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Hi All - just wanted to show off a new element to this years show. In order to have the light distributed, I created a screen to diffuse the LEDs. The screen diffuses 20 LED DMX bars - I now need to create some low resolution images/videos that will be more appropriate for the holidays than just color sweeps and patterns...that is the next thing I need to learn.

Any ideas on the best way to display basic holiday cartoons or animations? I tried some youtube videos, but am unsure of the best way to reduce the size? The farther you are, the clearer the picture...however, for some of the videos, it doesn't matter where you are, cannot make anything out...

Each bar has 32 LEDs which is 16 pixels per bar (48 channels) X 20 bars = lots of channels.

I have posted a couple of photos here, but if you would like to check out more photos, here is the link to other photos - http://www.occhristmas.com/contactus.html
 

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fasteddy

I have C.L.A.P
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Very nice effort, this looks similar to the CCR matrix i made but with even more pixels, what are you using to diffuse the light with and how far off the diffuser are the lights?

For me i used Lightshow Pro matrix tool to create my animations as it gave me much better direct control of the animation. leaving it up to the computer to convert from an AVI will give random results as the software would have to work out which pixel to turn on/off and sometimes this ends up being in between pixels and thus doesn't make the animation as sharp to look at.
 

occhristmas

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Jun 13, 2010
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21
I used broadcloth fabric - after trying several different types, the broadcloth seemed to provide the best diffusion. I still wanted to see the lights so that it didn't look like a rear projector.

And, I just used pvc for the frame - the screen is about 12 inches away from the pixels. I also coated both sides in fabric protector from scotch.
 

dgirard

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Sep 1, 2010
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29
Very cool!

Any chance you might have some video of that panel?

I just ordered a couple of trial bars from Raw Wu...as long as the quality lines up I'm planning on doing the same thing!

Which bars are you using?

David
 
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