New Video Footage
Posted by JEC on December 23rd, 2009
Finally!
A couple days ago I rented a Canon EOS 7D + 28-70 F/2.8L lens, which I used to capture some footage of the house on a frozen and windy night.
The camera can shoot full-on HD video – 1080p at 30 fps. 5 minutes of footage fills a 4 GB flash card. It’s compressed quite a bit by Youtube, but the actual color rendition is as close as I’ve ever seen. Audio is the same as you’d hear if you visited in person.
This next picture is the physical incarnation of an idea my wife had. She wanted snowflakes on the house. Lots of ‘em.
So we sketched up a family of flakes in the CAD program, then emailed the DXF files to the metal shop that’s just up the road. The shop tightly arrayed the flakes on a 4′ x 10′ piece of aluminum stock, then cut them out on the laser table.
The large flake shown here measures 23″ from tip to top and contains 83 RGB nodes on ~ 1.5″ centers. 83 nodes equals 249 channels of DMX and/or Art-Net. So 2 per universe.
Since we left ‘practical’ behind several months ago, such a massive channel count poses no problem at all.
Snowflake, fully loaded & waiting for installation.
The video clip below shows it running a simple – yet frantic – test pattern. It’s really, really bright.
With any luck, we’ll have a whole flock of these mounted on the house after Christmas. They’ll run through January & hopefully counteract the cold grey winter.
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Thanks!
December 24th, 2009 at 5:51 am
Very nice JEC & MPH. It sounds like it was a lot of work to make these things work, but the results look like they were worth it. Can’t wait to see if you offer them once you get the kinks worked out. I’m sure a whole house installation isn’t cheap, but would make for some neat effects like a tree topper!
December 24th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Nice idea snowflake. But the form of the flake dis aper with the bright light. maybe only on film, in real life it’s surely OK. I think I would done it in Plexiglas so the hole flake lights up.
And to keep up the critical side of me, He He.
The stripes on the house I would like to see more of hole pattern like starting from bottom building up like rising water. And flashing between windows, doors, roof lines.
But again maybe it looks different in real life?
At last but not least, It is an fantastic work that you get it up in place and programed as it is.
I can only guess the hours it must have eaten up….
A happy new year to all of you from a cold SWEDEN.
C-man
December 24th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
when, when, when???????
Can’t wait until you guys offer this technology for sale!!!
already have cool ideas!!!!
stephen
December 27th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
John,
You never cease to amaze me with the innovative things you come up with. Keep up the excellent work. Look foward to your e-mails, great stuff.
Thanks
Jerry
December 27th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
@Jerry – thanks for the kind words. It’s been an interesting journey, and I’m thrilled that you’ve been along for the ride.
December 31st, 2009 at 9:58 am
Looks fantastic! It seems almost ideal for home decorating. I’d like to see it slightly smaller – around 12″-18″ – and maybe as a 5-pointed star.
December 31st, 2009 at 10:04 am
@David – email me a sketch of what you’d like. Email is ‘john @ thisdomain.com. I’ll have the metal shop cut a few next week.