[HN Gopher] 3D printed mirror array
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3D printed mirror array
Author : agmm
Score : 351 points
Date : 2021-11-11 19:17 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| xmonkee wrote:
| This is so adorable
| matmatmatmat wrote:
| Seriously, can it get much better than this?
| zardo wrote:
| It should be possible to do animation driven by the movement
| of the sun in the sky.
| nazgul17 wrote:
| Fantastic! I love the creativity that went into this.
| bmsleight_ wrote:
| Wow how wonderfully geeky romantic. Did he say yes ? [Edit the
| sand said yes!]
| jhgb wrote:
| I'm wondering if a similar effect couldn't be done using a
| continuous surface and just silvering it. I saw something similar
| done with refraction but can't remember the URL now. 3D printers
| definitely have higher resolution than mirrors of this size.
| jacquesm wrote:
| If you're willing to spend a lot of money on silver then
| probably yes. After all the height differences are substantial
| and silver isn't cheap. 3D printers resolution sucks in
| comparison to the mirrors, I'm not sure what you mean by that.
| jhgb wrote:
| Not quite sure you need _that_ much silver. You need some
| filler between the silver layer and the crude plastic surface
| to get the silvering smooth, but that filler doesn 't
| necessarily need to be silver. As for the resolution, I'm
| judging it from this picture:
| https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bencbartlett/3D-printed-
| mi... - there seems to be almost two orders of magnitude of a
| difference between the size of a flat mirror and the size of
| the "printing step".
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Aluminizing it would be way cheaper than silver.
|
| For that matter, you could probably glue down pieces of
| aluminized mylar rather than using mirrors, since you all you
| need is a spot of light, not a full-blown mirror image.
| Aluminized mylar is pretty cheap!
| jcmontx wrote:
| Cool af! Congrats
| jstanley wrote:
| Excellent. I wonder how practical it would be to put each mirror
| on a servo so that you can change the image in real time?
| mrnotcrazy wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwCmzwSE98o&list=RDCMUCUbDcU...
| I don't know if you would need a server for each mirror? but
| you would need.... two axis of rotation? and making a
| mechanical system that slowly moved mirror by mirror to update
| the position might be more complex.
| [deleted]
| ortusdux wrote:
| Depends on the desired scale -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nb8mM3uEIc
| nomel wrote:
| This is quite a bit different. DLP like projectors are
| binary: straight forward or somewhere away. The layout of the
| grid of mirrors matches the layout of the dots you can
| illuminate, in the image. Something like OP has would require
| some pretty serious angular precision.
| beecafe wrote:
| You could use holography/beamforming to steer a beam from a
| DLP, although it would be just a small % of the original
| power.
| nomel wrote:
| I think the beautify of the mirror system is that it's
| direct, understandable/observable, and nice to look at by
| itself, even if it's not showing an image. It's elegant.
| If you use beam formers and DLPs, you're just making an
| overcomplicated DLP projector that's going to look like
| an overcomplicated DLP projector.
| beecafe wrote:
| Absolutely. And it'll keep working on a sandy beach far
| from any power source.
| jjk166 wrote:
| You'd probably want to use galvos instead of servos for this
| application (high speed/precision, low load mass).
| jacquesm wrote:
| Or piezo.
| martinky24 wrote:
| Look up "Adaptive Optics". That's literally what you describe
| :) They've got a somewhat niche use in astrophotography.
| anfractuosity wrote:
| You can get MEMS microscanners although they're probably a bit
| small - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microscanner but they can
| orientate a mirror on two axes.
|
| This one looks a pretty decent size -
| https://www.sercalo.com/products/mems-mirrors/mm160110-2
| jacquesm wrote:
| Swiss made precision optical gear. I think the price of that
| little mirror just might make your head spin.
| nikkinana wrote:
| That's sweet except he's a faggot.
| [deleted]
| dcroley wrote:
| This idea looks like something you could commercialize!
| _Microft wrote:
| I might be getting old but this is the sort of magic by
| technology I would like to see more of in the world instead of
| using tech to try putting people into fake worlds in some
| metaverse.
| gnramires wrote:
| I don't think the particular metaverses available right now
| seem that good, but I don't share the consistent prejudices
| against virtual reality. Why is real reality any better? You
| can build awesome stuff in virtual reality as well (in fact,
| you can build almost anything imaginable, at a much lower
| cost).
|
| Keeping in touch with reality is extremely important (because
| we are bound by its rules after all), but virtual existence has
| enormous potential as well :)
|
| (that can't be realized, and certainly not realized for
| everyone, in the world of atoms -- virtual reality is
| delightfully egalitarian)
|
| Value the bits _and_ atoms!
| spijdar wrote:
| Just a thought, but one reason to be skeptical of virtual
| reality, if only out of pragmatism, is that unlike "real"
| reality, virtual reality is trivially controllable by single
| entities.
|
| Maybe not an intrinsic limitation, but for the foreseeable
| future, VR = a domain where some entity like Facebook is
| effectively omniscient and omnipotent.
| r00fus wrote:
| VR is a better mousetrap to keep people engaged and connected
| (two things FB values a lot as it drives revenue).
|
| What real-world problems does VR serve for the average FB
| user? Or anyone frankly?
|
| Meanwhile, 3D printing could greatly improve how we design
| and fabricate things people use every day.
| [deleted]
| ampdepolymerase wrote:
| There is nothing special about this. This is the basis of all
| MEMS technology used in lidar. Some VR goggle designs probably
| contain MEMS parts too. It is disingenuous to complain about
| the metaverse business model while oohing and aahing over the
| exact same technology used to implement it.
| dang wrote:
| Can you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? We're
| trying to avoid flamewars here, and I'm sure you can make
| your substantive points without that.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| TheRealNGenius wrote:
| I mean, I don't think the parent post was that substantive
| either. There is nothing in this submission that
| necessitates roping in the topic of the metaverse. They
| could have just left it as they found this tech
| interesting.
| jacquesm wrote:
| If you can't say something nice about a project like this
| then say nothing at all. To belittle it is classless.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Agreed. I really, really hate it when someone shares
| something cool they've made and HN people dump on it.
|
| I'm not saying that HN has to be all mindless
| cheerleading, but non-constructive criticism is not
| helpful to anyone (except the critic's ego, maybe).
| ape4 wrote:
| The wedding is going to be over the top
| a_lost_needle wrote:
| Well, it definitely looks like it will be pretty gay! :)
| CTDOCodebases wrote:
| Such a cool idea. Now you have a momento to remember the day that
| can be hung on a wall.
| mrfusion wrote:
| I was going to suggest you could use it as a home decoration to
| make a message everyday but it would only work one day a year?
| saboot wrote:
| You'd need the mirror planes to be adjustable in the XY tilt
| directions. Seems doable though, would be a cool next project
| diplodocusaur wrote:
| There is an artist (at least) that uses arrays of motorized parts
| to create a similar effect
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV8v2GKC8WA mesmerizing
| qwertox wrote:
| Thank you for linking this.
| mlok wrote:
| This is quite close too : https://prusalab.cz/projekty/reflexe/
|
| (Petr Vacek & Adam Cigler / Prusalab / Czech Republic)
| thanatos519 wrote:
| Awesome! It's like a giant static DLP chip!
| diplodocusaur wrote:
| You are correct! This is essentially how office projectors work
| https://youtu.be/KpatWNi0__o?t=102
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Very cool.
|
| In a less-artistic application, you could use this idea to print
| multiple sections that could be assembled to make a large pseudo-
| parabolic mirror for a solar concentrator. You wouldn't get
| telescope-quality imaging, certainly, but if all you needed was
| to concentrate a lot of light on a small space (for a steam
| generator, say) it should work fine.
|
| Congrats on the upcoming wedding!
| fgblanch wrote:
| This project is soooo amazing! Congrats! Great piece of art and
| engineering
| meigwilym wrote:
| > that could just bring this idea into existence from nothing but
| a bit of code and some basic principles of physics.
|
| You're putting yourself down here. But congrats on the proposal!
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| Cool! Makes a nice object to hang on the wall too!
|
| I wonder if there's any types of filament that could be used to
| print a mirror-like surface good enough to work ?
| jonas21 wrote:
| Bears a striking resemblance to the James Webb Space Telescope
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope
| akomtu wrote:
| This idea will have many unexpected applications. For example
| difficult to remove signs projected to flat surfaces.
| harvie wrote:
| This is future of the street art. Mount it using liquid nails to
| some place that is hard to access and point it somewhere where
| lots of people will see it during rush hour.
|
| Eg.: You can install it in such way that parliament building will
| get defaced every day during lunch hours by mounting on near
| building or tall lamp post. Or maybe put it on your own roof,
| that way nobody can remove it :-)
| thih9 wrote:
| > put it on your own roof, that way nobody can remove it
|
| I imagine you'd need a permission; just like you'd have to get
| one if you wanted to use a projector and project something onto
| parliament. (TINLA)
| 123pie123 wrote:
| like the idea but how much sun does london really get?
| hobofan wrote:
| Enough to allow a skyscraper to melt cars[0].
|
| [0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-23930675
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's a bit of a special case though, at 50 suns or so it
| doesn't require much for that effect. Great demo for solar
| concentrators though!
| Toxygene wrote:
| Word of warning:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua_Teen_Hunger_Force#2007_Bo...
| Firerouge wrote:
| Wild, the police thought that the LED display, that had
| already been up for 4 weeks, might be a bomb, and then they
| somehow spent a million dollars handling the 'threat'.
|
| Wilder still, Turner bought off the police after for 2
| million dollars, and then censored the creators from
| releasing an episode critical of the Boston police response.
| anon9001 wrote:
| If you ask yourself where the money comes from, who gets to
| decides to spend it, and how much fun the police had
| playing with their toys, it all seems to make good sense.
| alhirzel wrote:
| Reminds me of Mitsuba 2; see Caustic Design at about 3 mins into
| the first video:
| http://rgl.epfl.ch/publications/NimierDavidVicini2019Mitsuba...
| _Microft wrote:
| That's impressive. Here someone created a slab of glass that
| turns the caustics into a picture of his cat:
| https://mattferraro.dev/posts/caustics-engineering
|
| (discovered via: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29063617
| )
| diplodocusaur wrote:
| 'two minute papers' has a link to a free course on how to do
| this. I haven't checked them out.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r-eIKkyAco Note: the title
| says 3d printing but it's actually milling acryllic sheets,
| not SLA
| jacquesm wrote:
| What an absolutely amazing piece of work, and even more
| incredible that it worked the first time. If I had to do
| something like that it would take me at least three tries to get
| it to work and quite possibly more than three. Math, 3D printing,
| love, what's not to like :)
|
| And congratulations!
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(page generated 2021-11-11 23:00 UTC)