Abstract
Content
- Introduction
- 1. The relevance of the topic
- 2. Goal and objectives of the research
- 3. System development
- Conclusion
- References
Introduction
In recent times it can be heard about the application of various effects, techniques, creative ideas to advertise different products in order to attract people's attention to the activities and technologies. This is (such as, For example) disguised in symbolic costumes people are invited to visit this or that action, and three-dimensional objects on billboards, and, of course, high-tech effects, such as a transparent vehicle equipped with a video camera on the one hand and the complete coverage of the LEDs which broadcast a picture of a video camera in real-time on the other hand [1].
1. The relevance of the topic
The most important task, of course, is the output of information. Not even from the content itself, but how interesting and attractively presented information will depend on the reaction of people to it. One of the ideas of visualization graphical information, which was proposed by Julius Popp and was called Bit.Fall, is the use of water to display the image, when his every pixel is a drop [2]. Because of the almost complete absence of the Ukrainian market of such services and their likely high price, it was decided to develop a setup to output graphics with water from their own reasons and their feasibility.
2. Goal and objectives of the research
Based on the foregoing, the task is to examine the possibility of creating and choosing techniques to develop a system that consists of a water display that generates a binary raster image by controlling the streams of falling water. For the research of the subject are used materials and data that are available on the Internet.
This system should consist of two parts that interact with each other: the hardware and software.
3. System development
The hardware installation is represented with a fixed at the certain height (2-3 meters) range of electromagnetic solenoid valve opening/closing of which is the on/off DC [3], located close to each other. They are connected to a water reservoir which is placed over them. Opens and closes at a certain time for each valve, they release the small drops or jets of water going vertically downwards. Thus dynamic control valves imaging (taken separately valve forms one pixel column).
Free-falling water falls in the second, higher-capacity reservoir, which is located on the ground under the valves. First, the bottom is filled with water tank and using continuously running pump water flows through the hose to the top of the container. In the case of complete filling of the latter, the water flows down the return hose. Thus, the system described is closed. Functional diagram of the installation can be seen in figure 1 (arrows indicate the direction of movement of water through the hoses on the left — back to the right — straight hose).
Figure 1 — Functional diagram of a graphical waterfall
(A, B — tanks, C — pomp, D — solenoid valves)
Work of valves is provided a control board. It consists of a microcontroller Arduino [4], equipped port USB, via which one receives from the computer information on the displayed image (or uses the stored image controller) and analyzing it turns on / off every valve using shift registers and power keys. Shift registers are used to increase the number of digital controller ports [5], and which control the state power switches [6]. As the latter will apply MOSFETs IRL2030, and as a shift register - chip M74HC595.
Software part of the graphical waterfall must be an application that controls the operation of the microcontroller interface for USB. It should allow you to download images from a file (to draw them to the user, or to convert the entered text in the image) and send it byte by byte microcontroller (possibly in compressed form [9]). As a programming language you plan to use a graphical language G in the development environment LabVIEW [7], or object-oriented Java [8].
Controller firmware should receive serial data corresponding to the transmitted image, analyze them and turn on / off solenoid valves, depending on the type of each line of the image.
There is a possibility to face a nonlinear velocity water droplets as it is accelerated by gravity and to minimize stretching bottom of the image may have to adjust the controller algorithm.
Figure 2 – Emulation of a real system
(looped animation: 32 frames, 700 KB)
Conclusion
After implementing the system described in the work to form a beautiful dynamic images of many tiny droplets of water, attracting people's attention. The image material is only a few seconds of free flight of droplets. Can be used to carry out promotional activities, different views as an element of interior design. The possibility of water re-use because of closedness of the system is doing its job of economic, because electricity is used only for the operation of the pump and power supply solenoid valves and the microcontroller.
In the future, wireless control can be implemented using a graphical waterfall Android-powered devices using Bluetooth technology and/or Wi-Fi. It can be also provided a receiving online topical keywords and images, for example, social networking Twitter and output them to the water display in real time.
References
- Mercedes сделал «прозрачный» автомобиль (LED и видеокамера) / Хабрахабр. — Access mode: http://habrahabr.ru/post/139387/.
- Bit.Fall | Science Gallery. — Access mode: http://www.sciencegallery.com/surfacetension/bitfall.
- Solenoid valve — Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. — Access mode: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solenoid_valve.
- Arduino — Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. — Access mode: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino.
- Аппаратная платформа Arduino | Arduino.ru — Access mode: http://arduino.ru/.
- Сдвиговый регистр | Электроника для всех. — Access mode: http://easyelectronics.ru/sdvigovyj-registr.html.
- Управление мощной нагрузкой постоянного тока. Часть 3. | Электроника для всех. — Access mode: http://easyelectronics.ru/upravlenie-moshhnoj-nagruzkoj-postoyannogo-toka-chast-3.html.
- LabVIEW — Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. — Access mode: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LabVIEW.
- Java — Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. — Access mode: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java.
- Binary image — Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. — Access mode: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_image.