World’s largest 3D-display

May 12th, 2006

Electrical engineering students at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands have created the world’s largest 3D-display. The display consists of 8,000 suspended ping pong balls that each contain a red LED light. It play games of 3D snake, 3D pong, and 3D duckhunt, as wll as displaying SMS messages and simple animations.

4 kilometres of copper wire, 3 kilos of solder, a couple of hundred metres of aluminium and eight printed circuit boards.

Entry Filed under: Interactive, Visual

10 Comments Add your own

  • 1. Lionel  |  May 29th, 2006 at 9:04 am

    The LEDs are one on top of the other in a square layout. I’d like to see them stacked in cubic close packed, aka CCP. CCP is the shape ping pong balls assume when you pile one on another. Molecules do the same. Chemists call it “CCP” or “HCP” (cubic or hexagonal close packing). Bucky Fuller called it IVM (isotropic vector matrix).

    I predict CCP display will look more attractive to the human eye. I predict waves will render better with a CCP display, as refraction, reflection and diffraction usually occur angles other than 90 and 45.

    BTW, Bucky predicted this invention in Synergetics. Here is that passage, translated into normal English:

    Atoms can be imagined as arranged in a matrix of “lights” which spreads equally in every direction. This model is like a three-dimensional version of the two- dimensional light-bulb-matrix billbooards on Broadway-and-Forty-Second Street, New York City. The billboards have fields of powerful little light bulbs which are switched off-and-on by remote controllers, varying their intensity and color.

    Our atomic model would display each and every atom in its naturally occuring arrangement. We could light a group of atoms to represent our own body. By turning on all the right lights at the right time, we could model “you,” with your organically arranged “body” of lights surrounding “you” in every direction, moving through space in any direction.

    With accurate timing, we could activate the same number of lights in the same pattern, and achieve the optical effect (as with two-dimensional, flat movies), by successively activating each of the lights from one voxel to the next, with small, local “movement” variations of “you” accomplished by special local matrix sequence programmings.

    We could progressively and discretely activate each of the atoms of such a matrix to become “lights,” and could move an arbitrary “form” through the field. The form could be a “sphere,” a “polyhedron,” or any other shape including complex ones such as you or me. This three-dimensional group of points can be programmed multidimensionally on a computer in such a manner that a concentric spherical cluster of “light” points can be progressively “turned on” to comprise a “substance” which seemingly moves from here to there.

  • 2. Ruairi  |  May 29th, 2006 at 12:20 pm

    An interesting point Lionel, I’ll make sure the guys at Delft get a look at this

    Cheers

    Ruairi

  • 3. Steve Boyer  |  June 1st, 2006 at 8:12 pm

    I created, patented and displayed a 3D animating LED Cube in 1999 in Chicago. This has often been credited to James Clar but I originally designed this in the late 1980s (I did a software simulation) and finally had the skills to build one by 1999.
    Just to set the record straight…

  • 4. Steve Boyer  |  June 1st, 2006 at 8:13 pm

    The URL to above 3D Cube patent:

    http://www.skyboy.com/patents.html

  • 5. J Gingold  |  June 19th, 2006 at 8:10 am

    This appears suspicously similar to the Cubatron, on a somewhat larger scale (but sans RGB control). Also, judging from the links to the “BRC” on the Cubatron site, the Delft display won’t be the largest in the world for long…

  • 6. digitalexperience »&hellip  |  July 31st, 2006 at 4:07 pm

    [...] Via Interactive Architecture. [...]

  • 7. Ronald’s blog &raqu&hellip  |  October 27th, 2006 at 7:52 pm

    [...] the world’s largest 3D-display, measuring 8 metres in width, 4 metresin height & 2 metres in depth, consisting of a matrix of 8.000 LEDswith table tennis balls around them. its dynamic applications include3D snake, 3D pong, 3D duckhunt & a SMS (text messaging) display. see also 3d display cube. [tudelft.nl|also interactivearchitecture.org] [...]

  • 8. LedLightRay&hellip  |  April 12th, 2008 at 10:14 pm

    The World Largest 3D LED Display…

    The “Electrotechnische Vereeniging”, the association for students of electrical engineering from the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), will reveal the world’s largest 3D-display Sunday 23rd of April. The display measures 8 …

  • 9. LED Cube - » Led co&hellip  |  June 29th, 2008 at 1:20 pm

    [...] Interactive Architecture dot Org » Blog Archive » World’s I created, patented and displayed a 3D animating LED Cube in 1999 in Chicago. This has often been credited to James Clar but I originally designed this in the late 1980s (I did a [...]

  • 10. Festival de Fachadas-Medi&hellip  |  November 3rd, 2008 at 4:15 pm

    [...] invitados como Tim Edler de Realities United, Stefan Hofmann de LichtKunstLicht, Ruairi Glynn de interactivearchitecture.org, entre otros,  y de distintas mesas de debate (mesas redondas) sobre este tema  y los nuevos [...]

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