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Hektor: the Graffiti Robot
Lopex writes "Gizmodo has a story about Hektor, a graffiti robot. Apparently it is for the extremely geeky (or perhaps extremely lazy) tagger. Hektor.ch has photos, information (pdf), and a movie (15 Mb) of it in action."
I think the inventor of this has been watching Time Cop way way too much
Another (awful) movie with graffiti robots.
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
Many moons ago (at least a couple of years I think) on the discovery channel, or similar. But they were showing it off as an abstract artist. I think the idea behind that is any monkey can construct a robot to "trace" a digital image. It would just be an oversized printer.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
This was covered months ago.
Hektor really needs to learn some can control. Look at that drip!
He also lacks style, but at least it's not just giant bubble letters.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
Hektor is probably on the way to graffiti /. for taking his site down..
The answer to all your problems
on front page. The Hektor.ch server is wiping tears right now!
Simple, elegant and with the right planning and execution some pretty decent murals could be done. I think there's a real market for it, even for commercial advertising. Give something like this more colors and even graphitti artists will begin to wonder why they put up with the freezing cold, cops, etc. when they could just hook up one of these and lurk in the shadows until it's done. No more lugging around twenty cans of spraypaint.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
A variation of an XY plotter, hanging from cables, gravity pulls it in the Y direction.
A friend and I did something practically identical years ago for a tech shop project in high school, though we werent allowed to use spraypaint, so we had it draw on walls with magic markers, like a giant hanging etch-a-sketch. Worked pretty well, and really wasnt that complicated to build (QBasic "driver" software included)
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Geeky... lazy... or perfectionist. Look at those serifs!
echo Prpv a\'rfg cnf har cvcr | tr Pacfghnrvp Cnpstuaeic
I think this story is a dupe. Didn't they send two of these to Mars?
litigious bastards
suck it sco!
"Hektor.ch hasphotos, information (pdf), and a movie (15 Mb) of it in action."
not anymore it doesnt
It looks like it's basically a large plotter. This is the simplest form of printer, except that pens or wax is traditionally used instead of spray cans.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Whatever.. until he goes all-city, he gets no respect. I'd also like to see him hit freights. As soon as he got set up, ZOOOM. Away goes the train, with Hektor hanging on for dear life..
.
Now you people at the JPL, don't go getting any ideas from this...
... with all that time spent on inventing that robot and getting it to work, they could have tagged so many things.... not that I am promoting tagging....
-Kids in the back seat causes accidents.- -Accidents in the back seat causes kids.-
Where's the art? I'm sure that there are lots of people who would argue that graffiti is not art, but I feel that it's a valid form of subversive social commentary.
Most of the Graffiti kids I have known tag for a bunch of reasons..
Reasons like the art of it (I've seen some fantastic tags), but mostly the challenge of getting to a spot where you have time to throw a good tag. I mean, half of what people graffiti is their own name, or TAG, mostly on the biggest, most difficult thing to get to that they can find.
It's about the art, and about the challenge. Using a robot seems like mere automated vandalism.
This just makes me wonder why similar technology hasn't been used for the giant advertisements that cover the entire side of buildings. From what I've seen, these are all done by living human artists, who do a remarkable job in most cases. But it would seem very realistic, and I'd think cheaper to use some kind of robotic painter that could replicate art on anything. Have I just missed the news, or is it Clear Channel holding back the progress of technology?
Quite old.
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
Here's the old post.
My other sig is a Porsche.
As if those no-talent taggers aren't enough, now we can look forward to them automating the process.
Proof-positive tagging isn't art.
*puts on flame retardant underpants*
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
We already have robots that make bad art. They're called "network executives".
Best Windows Freeware
I propose we rename it from Hector into Turk 182 2nd Edition...
A graffiti robot is cool...but it just doesn't have the attitude of a bending robot! Let me know when this thing can drink booz, pick up hookers, pimp and crush humans all before 11am. Maybe then I'll be impressed.
Bender: Hmm, looks like my antenna's in the wrong place... let me just adjust it...
Fry: Bender, no! You'll make baby jesus cry!
A direct link to a 15MB .mov file on the front page of slashdot? Does someone REALLY not like the people who run that server or something?
...if it could do this.
as it is... it's impressive, but it isn't the graffiti 'Birth of Venus'
An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of
In case you don't follow these things.
I saw this yesterday on Gizmodo, and was tremendously impressed with not only the quality of workmanship, but also the terrific software design - these guys created a custom program to take input from Adobe Illustrator, and create paths upon which Hektor can travel easily. See Scriptographer.com for the plugin. Really tremendous product, and the results are amazing (check out the portrait of Che Guevara in the PDF!)
Yeah, a nice bit of javascript that opens over a half dozen windows in rapid-fire order, ordered a CD from Amazon using my account, sent a flaming email to GWB, redirected me to the goat-whatever guy, played the Dean Scream, and then crashed Mozilla. Well, ok, only the bit about opening up a bunch of photos.
[RANT]Folks- popup windoid things as part of your website are like talking appliances. Every so often, designers get it in their heads that it's a Hot Idea, and then everyone drags them out into the street and demonstrates how the current generation of designers got their new jobs. If I want to open something on your site in a new window, I'll goddamn hold down the modifier key and THEN click the link, thanks much.[/RANT]
Please help metamoderate.
Taggers SUCK.
It's ugly, it's destructive, and it sure ain't art.
You might as well just smear a public place with your own feces. Same effect.
Mayors all over the world rejoice!
This is a printer/plotter. Moves on wires. Makes marks. Hooray.
If I could make this sig kill you, I would.
I was hoping for a robot that would enter data into my Palm Pilot for me.
--"You can lead a man to knowledge, but you can't make him think."
Who ever said it beforeis right, it's just a really big printer, but what they don't tell you is that it's priced way below manufactuing value. However, replacment spray cans are $40 and only approved company made spay cans should be used, that's were they get ya.
Definitions of robot vary, of course, but I feel that something that has to be attached by a human to the object on which it works does not meet mine.
A real graffiti robot would have suckers, or crampons, or a big extending ladder, not rely on someone else placing pulleys for it.
--
E_NOSIG
how rad would that be if johnny five could have done this?
Before we get into a discussion about whether or not this is 'art', please provide us with your definition of 'art'....
Now this is a taggin' robot!!!
Check out the GraffitiWriter at Applied Autonomy.
Had I written the algorithm, I would have just made it move directly to the point and then start drawing - but this looks like it goes to the start point, waves around the immediate area for a bit and then starts.
(Answer may be in PDF, I can't open it though)
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
if you click on the jpg link... consider yourself warned
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
OK, so one guy can paint a shed, but to paint the side of a tower block, you need scaffolds or a lift and time. Lots of money.
With this thing you just need a longer piece of rope and two mount points. Bigger building? longer rope. Switch the paint nozzle by radio. Even bigger building, just a longer rope.
I'm grabbing it with 60 comments already, and I'm getting 182 KB/s
"You worthless post!"
-Shakespeare, 2 Gentlemen of Verona, 1. 1. 147
First they should be forced to build a graffity-cleaning bot. Many find graffity ugly and that it lowers property resale values.
Table-ized A.I.
Video available here
PDF available here
They tag for the same reason (and the same mentality) as a dog peeing on fire hydrants. To mark "their" territory.
In the mid 80's a geeky friend and I came up with a project called MPH.. The Mobile Print Head.
This was essentially a larger version of a dot matrix print head.. Mounted under a vehicle, it could spray text on a road using a series of spray nozzles controlled by simple electric air valves.
A small wheel with a sensor follows along the ground and provides data on vehicle speed.
We always thought it would be very interesting to build and use... Especially for good social change.. BUT... We just weren't the sort of people who go around spraying graffiti. So we never built it.
(and yes, we definitely were capable of building it and writing the driver software).
I can't remember the last time we had a server come by that could put out 500 kB/sec under a slashdot.
...the picture the robot draws in the video is a self-portrait of the peanut gallery who kept commenting throughout the entire movie.
<rimshot> Be sure to tip your waitress, I'll be here all week!
*duck and cover*
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
oooooo, what's the matter kiddie? Don't like me trashing your precious, media-manufactured world-view?
Tagging isn't "cool". It's not "hip", "extreme", "3l3373", or any other bullshit. It's pure and simple vandalism.
You rank amongst people who litter and piss on the sidewalk.
Nobody admires your "mad tagging sKiLLz" except your own tiny, pathetic clique of mouthbreathing feces-smearers. The rest of the world properly sees you as just another form of vermin, and your "artwork" is greeted with the same enthusiasm as a fresh, steaming rat turd in one's oatmeal.
You have as much claim to "artwork" as a pigeon does to a rain-streaked pile of pigeon droppings on the top of a statue. Same asthetic.
Here's a clue: humanity grew out of marking our territory with ugly messes about 3 million years ago. How about growing the fuck up and joining the rest of us in civilization?
once i think it was in Adbuster
basically, someone had modified a R/C car to hold a rack of spray paint cans and some additional hardware, to form a kind of dot matrix printer which was used to paint slogans on the pavement.
i also vaguely remember something about some people doing the same thing on a larger scale, using a passenger van and painting long messages on road surfaces.
since when are taggers not lazy?
sulli
RTFJ.
From visiting the site, I'm gonna go out on a limg here and say this guy uses a mac. Im just guessing tho.
-"I'm one of those Mac people that will break a bottle on the bar and hold it to your throat for bad-mouthing my system"
Already covered on July 7th, 2003.
If you didn't see it then, the BBC News story linked in the July posting still works.
~Philly
The walls had built-in grafitti removing sprinklerish zappers.
My first thought was that the pattern looked a lot like the random pattern of one of those automatic floor vacuum cleaners - with a paint can strapped to it just before you let it go. - Have your friend try it at their house first. Momma might not be too happy!
And I'm sorry, but if you don't think graffiti is a valid art form, you're a fucking idiot. I was going to find you some examples online, but I'm not going to waste my time.
There's a difference between tagging and graffiti or aerosol art. If you're unable to make that distinction, I feel sorry for you.
some slimy patent lawyer who probably doesn't even know how spray cans work.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
There are valid forums for this art form, the Qtopia Event Center in Hollywood has graffiti art exhibitions on their own property frequently. And then there are assholes who vandalize others' property.
Just like there are people who drive cars to work, and there are people who run over their spouse because they're fucked up in the head. There's a difference.
the Graffiti Writer (R/C car)
http://www.appliedautonomy.com/gw.html
That we'll never-ever be rid of the 5 inch floppy cachunk-cachunk noise if people start making these things en masse?
Enough said.
now what's the point? it looks kind of flimsy to me..
If you think that graffiti isn't art, check out some of these pictures. These are from Paint Louis 2000, a now-defunct graffiti art event in St. Louis. Graffiti artists from around the world would gather in St. Louis over the Labor Day weekend to paint a one-mile stretch of flood wall by the Mississippi River.
True, not all graffiti is art. Some of it is downright ugly. But some of it is beautiful, imaginative, and awe-inspiring.
You don't have to be the person you've become.
...if Hector could teach me how to draw straight lines? I always have problems with those. I was hoping for a solution that didn't involve myself being suspended by two wires, though.
I regularly report MSN spam to the Hotmail admins.
What will our children do when these grafitti robots come and replace them? They will have nothing to do but wander the streets and vandalise things ... oh wait nevermind.
Popups are tolerable, so long as there's only ONE AT A TIME. Having 7 windows open up like that is not only annoying (maybe I don't want to close 7 windows or maybe I don't want to see more than one picture), but also a waste of resources (maybe I don't want to dedicate that much bandwidth). In addition, it requires a webmaster with no foresight, as the massive bandwidth and data transfer amounts are otherwise completely avoidable .
Personally, the second all of those opened I closed them, and didn't give a second thought to exploring the site. I consider it equivalent to a virus, worm, or hack-job. If an outside source causes my computer to do something I didn't want it to, it's hijacking, no matter their intent.
G
Where do you find the time to be building robots to deface your buildings? These students who built this robot go to "Carnegie Mellon University" which also has done accrediation for my firm! Life in America must be very different as people do not seem to be concerned with producing value but with producing... I must call it a value destroyer! I have much to learn I suppose.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think the rope stretching would be a problem.
If you were going to paint a picture on a large building you would start by dropping a rope down and anchoring it at the bottom as tight as you could. From that point forward the rope would not stretch anymore. The robot would be able to tell its position by how far it travelled on the rope, not how long the actual rope is.
I would think the wind would be a much bigger problem with doing something like this.
While these guys may know something about making a robot they know nothing about tagging. The spraycan was using standard tips.
Wind is only a facter if the bug, (turtle), whatever they call it is very light. And at a distance of a hundred feet you wouldn't notice if the wind blew the bug or the paint a few inches.
What a toy!
Wow. Amazing comeback there child.
Why am I not suprised that the best you can do is make a masterbation reference?
Probably because you operate at the mental level of a primate anyway - so all you can can handle is shit-slinging and self-manipulation. As evidenced by your chosen "hobby" which amounts to public self-gratification anyway.
Guess what? We don't want to see you playing with your pathetically tiny penis. Have the good sense to do that in private instead.
Ummm...Hello? This is a science project...This wasn't made by X graffitti artist to ease his spray-finger. It's a science project done with the purpose to create something scientific. If you want to call the creating process art, then fine. Art means to be art and science means to be science. Sometimes scientific things can be creative and artistic and vice-versa, but nevertheless lets, please, maintain our perspectives.
Plus...Hektor is obviously a robot replica of Andy Warhol.
"The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want." - F Scott Fitzgerald
but I think it would be a good starting point for creating one to paint on 3D surfaces. Imagine if you could hang this wire around your house and have all the trim done in a couple of hours...
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
I'm just guessing, but it seems the software wants to spray the dot from right to left.
As for just going to the start point and spraying: The rest of the wandering around is probably due to the positioning system having to accelerate and decelerate the "rope" (or cable or whatever). Since it's not a solid bar, the system has to allow for the compliance and zero-in on the commanded position.
You know, you're cool and sucky at the same time.
You're cool because you say the right thing.
You're sucky because you couch it in verbiage that hides your point in art-fag language.
All you had to say was "The reason there's no objective definition of "good" art is because nothing is so good that someone, somewhere, won't hate it. Isn't it nice that the most social of things gets a free pass on criteria it can't help to meet overall?"
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Kinda reminds me of my old ass video card trying to render some of today's games.
Was picking a common hispanic name for this robot just a coincidence? Just curious.
... .... when someone shows me using that robot inscribing: "I work for Microsoft, see how advanced I am." on the front of Gates' pristine chapel walls - THEN I'll be impressed.
I was gonna make one of these!! Well, I don't have a school grant so I didn't, but mine was going to drive itself along sidewalks and use multi-colored spray chalk. Cool high-dpi sidewalk murals and the like, you know? I'd roll along on two robot controlled wheels and the print head would scoot left and right.
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
Like we need more graffiti.
Imagine all of the great things we could automate with robots:
GraffitiBot - tags all clean walls with cool phrases like "i Ownz j00", "H4x0R", and "Linux Rules"
ThiefBot - hangs out in front of convenience stores and steals hot dogs and candy bars
CoffeeBot - Orders one regular coffee and sits in small groups at Starbucks all day long holding a section of newspaper
BeggarBot - Identifies high traffic sidewalk areas, holds out sign, and pokes at passers by asking for handouts
RecyclerBot - collects recyclables and fends off attacks from humans attempting to steal valuable cardboard, aluminum, and glass (hey, that's actually a good idea! (c) 2004 me)
It seems like this is the place to discuss the nerdier elements of their robot... But discussing tagging vs. "art" with the pocket-protector crowd seems about as useful as discussing cold fusion with Jessica Simpson. These aren't the people you want to talk to about art... move along.
The internet. A hotbed of self expression... so long as you're expressing it the way *WE* prefer it be expressed. Get off it. Th guy thought it a fun way to do it, and I can't say it wasn't. Window.open is hardly a "Hot Idea" anyway. He's not selling a product and isn't necessarily interested in W3C compliance. Who the fuck is it really *really* hurting if the guy want's some Js practice/fun/whateverhismotive.
Overall, Style Wars was a better movie.
This robot can't compete with Kase or Cap in the personality department.
And it's available on DVD.
http://www.stylewars.com
How difficult would it be to keep say a device such as this with the necessary equipment in it's own "secure" storage place by the sides of freeways or other places where tagging is eminent and have it go over the graphitti during peak times where people are likely to not make an attempt to vandalize due to the amount of public who would likely take note and alert authorities?
( o ) one could say I'm rather baked
There was a Judge Dredd where the judges seeked a master tager capable of tagging in inverosimile places that
SPOILER ALERT
ends up discovered to be a robot bored with its job.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
I actually lifted 90% of that from Cat and Girl as an excuse to link to a funny picture of Joseph Beuys, but it's nice to know how good I am at this pseudo-coherent art-babble stuff. They tell me my philosophy student impression's pretty good too.
Anyway, hate is a subjective qantity. What is hate? Are we using hate in the metaphysical sense? In that case, assuming even so much as to say that mankind is even capable of true hate is patently ridiculous. Even if we stick to common usage, hate would have to change depending on it's source. The hate a peaceful man might have for someone tagging his house is an entirely different thing from the hate of someone who's already hate-filled at the outset. Can you really compare the two in any real sense?
Any others?
Hektor the Graffiti Robot, meet Linguo the Grammar Robot!
Would be an mobile graffiti removing bot - a mobile bot, able to cope with urban landscapes, and with a long telescoping arm.
When instructed to remove graffiti from a wall - it will either try and use water/sand or detergent cannons to blast it off(paint remover?). Or the other possibility is to paint over it.
If the robot is painting over it, the robot could either be supplied with the right paint, or given the primaries, plus black and white, and use a color sensor to determine a pantone for the colors and mix the paint accordingly.
Later on this evening - I will add a report on this artical on OrionRobots with details on basic colour sensing gear...
OrionRobots.co.uk - Robots From sol
I think I will dig out that old HP Large Format CAD pen plotter from the Garage and with a few modifications try this .... cool.
Great for an election year think of all those slogans on the wall. Real fast. Kilroy for President.
yes, i think microsoft sent two of those to Mars! "This planet is copyrighted by Microsoft (C)(R)(TM)1985-2003 inc. Ltd. By landing on "accept" you agree to the Terms And Conditions