No. 224
Combustion in Cage
By : yuskegoto
Entrant’s location : 日本
LINKS
Description
In this project, I built a three dimensional flame visualisation in 8x8x8 3D LED cube. The flame is simulated by the combustion and fluid-dynamics engine in Houdini. The result is visualised on 8 x 8 x 8 three dimensional LED display which I designed and built from scratch. The project did not aim to produce a practical object, but rather an investigation and attempt to reproduce the phenomena created by fire into digital media. このプロジェクトは3次元の炎を8x8x8のLEDキューブ中に表現させるものである。炎はHoudiniの燃焼及び流体力学シミュレータにより生成され、そのシミュレーション結果を自身で設計・製作した8x8x8のLEDキューブに表示することとした。本プロジェクトは実用的な製品を作るためではなく、炎が作り上げる効果の検証とそのディジタルメディアによる再現を目指している。
What did you create?
In this project, I built a three dimensional flame visualisation in 8x8x8 3D LED cube. The flame is simulated by the combustion and fluid-dynamics simulation on Houdini. The result is visualised on 8 x 8 x 8 three dimensional LED display which I designed and built from scratch. The display achieved high dot visibility thanks to tiny SMD LED chips and extra fine copper wires that minimise the physical presence of the LED dots and grid. The project did not aim to produce a practical object, but rather an investigation and attempt to reproduce the phenomena created by fire into digital media.
Why did you make it?
Long time I had an idea to build my original three dimensional display using a three dimensional grid of LEDs. After I constructed my first prototype and tried to make interesting pattern with this display, I realised that random blinking of the LED chips resembles burning charcoal. There are products like German designer Ingo Maurer’s “My new flame” on which animation of a candle fire is displayed on LED grid. So If I were to run a combustion simulation on computer, can I call it fire? Off course not in physical sense, but rather in phenomenlogical sense. "The new flame" resembles a candle only with realistic animation without sound or heat. Does it mean if the movement look realistic, do we perceive it as real? So in this project I concentrated on extracting the essence of fire, especially its physical movement.
How did you make it?
This projects consists of originally developed 3D display system and combustion simulation on PC.The 3D display consists of 512 SMD chip LEDs(Red), circa 0.1mm copper wire, 8 LED drivers, steel rods, 3D-printed parts and a Arduino controller to interface PC. One LED grid module consists 64 LEDs laid in 8 x 8 grid. To achieve minimum visibility of LEDs, I have chosen a LED chip with wide visible angle. 8 modules are stacked together to make a cube with 8 bit resolution per axis. All modules are daisy chained to Arduino controller over SPI interface.Simple combustion simulation was set up on Houdini. From the simulation, heat parameter from each points are extracted, then the data are sent to Arduino controller over USB serial via Touchdesigner which works as a OSC bridge.
Your entry’s specification
The projects consists of LED display sistem (circa 300mm cube), control PC and control cable.The 3D display consists of 512 SMD chip LEDs(Red), circa 0.1mm copper wire, 8 LED drivers, steel rods, 3D-printed parts and a Arduino controller to interface PC.