Picture-Lightpainting by JoHerz

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

Welcome to Lightpainting!
Lightpainting is fun with your camera on bulb mode in the night
The camera stands on a tripod, fixing to an object in the dark.
in the time the camera is open, you can use any light to move in the picture. Your body will not be visible because its dark and you are moving. So you can paint with light.
This lightstick is much more than a simple light. WIth 120 LEDs in a row it can animate the row through moving while the picture ist taken.
Animations can be internal routines, but for more fun, you can play pictures from SD-card column by column, so any picture can be painted into the air!
Get helper for taking pictures: One starts and moves the lightstick, the second starts and stops the camera. And optionally a third persons can add normal flashes to objects and persons to make them visible in the picture.
How it works:
2 m of Neopixel-Strips are attached to an Arduino nano which is powered by 4 AA batteries.
A SD-Card Reader is attached through the SPI interface.
5 Buttons are allowing to choose the picture-/animation-groups, selecting the files, setting the brightness and other parameters like direction of playing and repeating.
After switching on, all LEDs are shortly shown for starting.
If you press the start-button a intro startanimation is shown in a 4 second animation, so the camera man knows when you can open the shutter in bulb mode (use always a tripod and a remote shutter)
The lightstick can now be moved in a constant way like you wish
At the end of the animation the camera can be closed, but it is possible to move the lightstick out of the picture and to start on or more normal flashes from any angle or spots to add persons to the picture.
You can switch off the startanimation by a button, so you can add more than one animation on one picture.
The possibilities are endless. Have fun with lightpainting !
How to add pictures on SD-card:
Because the memory of an arduino is only 2kb, alle pictures are stored on the SD-card. You can save up to 100 files with animations on it.
Use the file-convention like this:
"1_01_N_V.lp"
The first number is the group number to group your animations like directories. You can use the Number 1 to 9. Dont use 2 as a group, because in group 2 all internal calculated animations like rainbows are automatically added.
The second number is the filenumber inside a group. Start with 1.
The first char can be N für Normal oder U for endless playing until you press the start button again.
The second char can be N für Normal oder R for reverse playing.
Usage of the buttons:
Generally: if you change a parameter, a kind of menu will be displays as colors because we have no display on board. You can see the filenumber, the choosen group, the actual brightness and the flags of direction, repeating and showing the startanimation.
Start-button starts the animation and stops it at endless animations.
Group-Button cycles through the file-groups.
File-button chooses the file in a group. If it is long pressed, you can switch on or off the startanimation
Brightness "+" -button increases the brightness of your stick. If it is long pressed, you can switch between one or endless playing of the file. Note that this parameter is only active until you switch to the next file, because the filename sets this parameter automatically fitting to the filename.
Brightness "-" -button decreases the brightness of your stick. If it is long pressed, you can reverse the direction of playing. Note that this parameter is only active until you switch to the next file, because the filename sets this paramter automatically fitting to the filename.
How to build:
Use aluminium rods to fix the stripes. I used 12*12 millimeters of "U"-rods.
The design allows to divide the project into parts of 1 meter length for better transporting.
The handle bar can be attached by screwing. It allows better moving of the stick and effects like turning the animations for cycling. I am using a round 3 cm aluminium rod.
The rest can be printed.
All the software for the arduino is attached.
I have also writ ten a windows software für importing, creating and editing paintings. The best way is to choose any picture you want, size it with "Paint" to a height of 120 pixel und import it with this program. Save ist as an *.lp file and copy it to the sd card.
This windows editor is also attached here.
All software or parts are free for personal use. The commercial use is not allowed without my permission!