Replace Your Windows With LCD Panels

hoagaboom writes "I had particularly ugly neighbors and a lot of LCD panels laying around, so why not build a Virtual Window? I really wanted to do full motion video, but PCI bandwidth is standing in my way. So with multiple PCIE vid cards, any suggestions on how to split a full motion video stream in Linux?"

Comments

You could always

[Anonymous Coward]

Hook up a webcam and put it right outside.

Re:You could always

[jellomizer]

While this is a funny post. I can actually see a practical use for this. I live a block away from the Hudson River in Upstate NY. Which is rather pritty to look at but where my house is located there is a house and a bunch of trees in the way. So If I took a digitial camcorder and zoomed in a little It would be like my house was right on the river.

Re:You could always

[Anonymous Coward]

Heck yes, and with some voyeur pr0n, I can stop spying on my neighbors daughter -- even though I do believe she secretly likes it.

Re:You could always

[dgatwood]

I've been thinking about doing this for years, but for a very different reason, and using only monochrome LCD panels. Every morning, the sun wakes me up, whether I want it to do so or not. Imagine if your window were instead an LCD panel. Suddenly you could get a near-perfect blackout of the sunlight until a more convenient time of day, then slowly raise the level of sunlight (by changing black/white pixel percentages in a repeating pattern) for a comfortable wakeup. Once the panel is fully "lit", it should basically be clear, or at least that's the goal.

Three years ago, I could handle the amount of sunlight that came through the upper windows above my main windows. A year ago, I couldn't, so I put in mini-blinds on those. Now even that is bright enough to bother me (even at night, just from the moonlight), hence the line of thinking. Maybe it's just me.

Re:You could always

[ePhil_One]

Three years ago, I could handle the amount of sunlight that came through the upper windows above my main windows. A year ago, I couldn't, so I put in mini-blinds on those. Now even that is bright enough to bother me (even at night, just from the moonlight), hence the line of thinking. Maybe it's just me.

Dude, you're either turning into a vampire or have a serious medical problem. Either way I suggest a doctors visit...

Re:You could always

[Anonymous Coward]

They make windows with some kind of liquid-crystal built into them which allow you to make them as clear or opaque as you wish by turning a knob.

Re:You could always

[tylernt]

Three words: heavy black curtains.

Re:You could always

[ahecht]

Not opaque, just translucent, which wouldn't do the job (although motorized curtains sold for home theaters would).

Re:You could always

[tylernt]

This was in a 60s Popular Science/Mechanics "Wave of the Future" movie, but I've never heard of one actually for sale. Even if somebody made them, they would be exorbitantly expensive, and fragile to boot.

Re:You could always

[jackbird]

Imagine if your window were instead an LCD panel. Suddenly you could get a near-perfect blackout ...

Expensive Solution

Cheap Solution.

Re:You could always

[mikael]

Talking of water, could this be used to cure sea-sickness? I've travelled in ferries where the main passenger sections were enclosed by walls with no windows, and passengers became ill very easily. Could a video wall of LCD's displaying a scene moving in sychronisation with the motion of the ship be used to help remedy this?

Re:You could always

[DarkVader]

This company would seem to differ with you a bit.

They don't talk price on their site, so it's a fair bet that it's expensive, but from the other things I've seen about it, it's a real product, and really for sale.

Re:You could always

[ScrewMaster]

Probably. Patent it quick, before someone else does.

Re:You could always

[Anonymous Coward]

Too late. It's now a public idea.

Re:You could always

[ScrewMaster]

Damn.

Re:You could always

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it's a good idea. And it's called MOCOVE.

Re:You could always

[LiMikeTnux]

or duct tape and black construction paper...

Re:You could always

[mikewas]

Too late, it's been done. It happenned right after we found the results of unsynchronized images in a flight simulator.

It wasn't pretty.

Re:You could always

[heathcaldwell]

Sleep with the light on. You'll get used to it.

- Heath

Re:You could always

[QuietGeek]

Dude! Interesting idea, however not entirely new. There are devices called "dawn simulators" that you can buy. Normally folks with SAD (Seasonal Anxiety Disorder - not enought sunlight in winter) get them, but I got one for the every reasons you state. I bought some blackout curtains, a dawn simulator and 4 tracklights. Mount the lights about the bed and Voila! I have never woken up so nicely in my life! The lights come up over 45 mintues and I just gradually wake up. No jarring beep/ring/buzz from alarmclocks. pure heaven. Here's where I got my dawn simulator: http://www.fullspectrumsolutions.com/dawnsimulator .htm If you have the spare LCDs and the time, your idea sounds pretty cool, but even at $200, this is a pretty cheap way to go.....

Re:You could always

[Adam9]

Tell my roommate that; he claims that the glare of the light from my LCD monitor penetrates a bath towel on the other side of the room and that is enough to keep him awake.

OT, yes, but I needed to vent.

Re:You could always

[deragon]

Now, now. Since when prior art prevents you to patent something?

Re:You could always

[superpulpsicle]

In that case I'll display mpegs of hot sunny days on my monitor for those cold winter times.

Wait the sec, why don't I just display a fireplace.

Oh wait, why don't I just display the sun at my window.

Re:You could always

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bother watching porn when you could be filming it?

Re:You could always

[niko9]

Or you could just sell your house, buy a van, then proceed to live in a van down by the river...er..never mind!

Re:You could always

[Anonymous Coward]

And if it turns out he is a vampire, the right doctors can hook it up at the blood bank.

Re:You could always

[corian]

Hook up a webcam and put it right outside. ...on a twelve-hour delay. Perfect way to amuse/confuse your houstguests.

Re:You could always

[Anonymous Coward]

"dawn simulator"??

ha haha haah

I just use the sun. Works like a charm -- even when the power is out.

Re:You could always

[Suidae]

As an alternative, pick up some X10 lamp modules (usually good for up to 300 watts of incandescent lights) for about 20 bucks and program your computer (I presume you already have one of those) to gradually ramp the lamps up at a specified time.

Maybe not quite a convienant since it doesn't have an easy way to do a fixed 8 hour delay, but on the other hand, most people want to wake up at a specifed time anyway, not 8 hours after they went to bed.

My bedroom window faces east so I get full sun in the face every summer morning, but I may investigate this idea for the winter. Maybe I can pipe in some fresh air (slightly warmed) and record some of those damn birds too. Gods but they are annoying.

Re:You could always

[Lancaibheal]

Last time I travelled by ferry with my girlfriend, she was (violently) seasick while standing on the deck. If actually being outside doesn't help, then a fake window probably won't either.

Re:You could always

[LBArrettAnderson]

They showed us something like that in my photo class... There are two layers, and some sort of (non-visible) pattern on each, and when you turn one layer, it will either block out more light or allow more light. Either way i don't think it's possible to allow more than 50% transparency... but possible for 100% opaqueness.

Re:You could always

[Anonymous Coward]

If you need a webcam... here is a cool robotic camera... http://demo.nuspectra.com/. Cool views of a shipyard in San Francisco.

Re:You could always

[Timbotronic]

It could help, but any delay in relaying the video from outside would probably make things worse. I remember reading years ago that people using VR headsets experienced 'simulator sickness' because of delays between position changes and updates on the image.

I always find the best remedy for motion sickness in boats and light planes is still:
- get some fresh air
- look at the horizon
- (if safe/possible) take the wheel/yoke

Re:You could always

[wheany]

Even better: duct tape and aluminum foil.

Re:You could always

[werwerf]

I've seen those!...

You go into a room and put coins and then the glass gets clear and a lady in scant clothing is dancing and...

Err... Nevermind! Nothing to see here, just move along! :)

---
there was a SIG here.
it is gone now.

Re:You could always

[JWSmythe]

There was a thing, I believe in Popular Science, about someone who was doing exactly that. I guess the idea didn't fly back then. Basically, they replaced regular windows (the glass product, not the OS) with large LCD's.

There was another one that did something with using an electromagnetic field, and a special material. The material, when not charged was opaque. Apply a charge, and it's completely transparent. Heck if I remember what it was. Unfortunately, it was a translucent white, not a black like youre hoping for.

Oh, a little research finds the answer here.

My cheaper solution than all of this was to use poster board from Target (like kids would use in a class project), and taped it over the windows with packing tape (I had it from the last move). It was white on the outside, so it didn't look too bad. Then I covered the window inside with dark color, and then closed the blinds over that.

It wasn't that I can't handle sunlight. The vampirism hasn't set in quite that bad yet. But, the wall of my bedroom with large single pane windows was facing east southeast. It made for a very uncomfortable morning. Very bright (like, you couldn't tell if you turned on the bedroom lights or not), and the temp would raise by at least 15 degrees. It wasn't a well built apartment, by any stretch of the imagination. I just didn't like waking up with it being hot and bright first thing in the morning, especially when I usually don't go to sleep until about 4am or so most days.

Re:You could always

[Kranfer]

I live in troy myself, I know what you mean. I live a block from the river (lansingburgh actually) it would be nice to have windows to look out on the river itself without having nasty neighbors in the way you know?

Re:You could always

[Zorilla]

This was in a 60s Popular Science/Mechanics "Wave of the Future" movie, but I've never heard of one actually for sale.

It couldn't be. I remember seeing these things installed on some PBS home improvement show about ten years ago...Home Time w/Dean Johnson, I think. As for fragile, it doesn't have to be behind a thin layer of plastic since glare isn't an issue, although the glass needs to be pretty thick to prevent so much as a strong wind from cracking the cells.

Re:You could always

[Zorilla]

I guess it beats moving to Japan to solve the issue. One of the things I noticed on the first morning here is how ridiculously early the sun rises. In the summer, it starts getting light around 4:00 AM and doesn't get dark until about 8:00 PM. I guess part of it is that where I am is about the same latitude at Maine, but also because the time zone is ridiculously wide (we share it with Korea) and I'm on the eastern extreme of it.

Re:You could always

[Anonymous Coward]

They're called electrochromic windows.

Re:You could always

[DMadCat]

From what the site says, you need to apply voltage for it to perform as a window.

So in the future it's going to cost money to open your windows?

Re:You could always

[StarRoamer]

That effect is called cross-polarization or something like that. Microscopic parallel lines etched on the class polarize the light passing through the glass. when you stack two such at right angles it blocks most (not 100%) of the light. changing the angle between the plates will change the amount of light that passes through.

Re:You could always

[StarRoamer]

Hey! Your expensive solution is exactly what I want in my car windows. When I park, I could turn the glass off and block most of the heat buildup.

Re:You could always

[Derek Pomery]

what do you mean no convenient way to do a fixed 8h delay?
sleep 8h;~/bin/wakeup.sh

Re:You could always

[Anonymous Coward]

Talking of water, could this be used to cure sea-sickness?

I once saw an article on 'Tomorrow's World' about a gyroscopic table lamp for use on ships. The idea was the light/shadow from the lamp would provide a 'virtual horizon' that would stop people getting seasick.

That was ages ago... I don't know what eventually became of it...

Michael

Re:You could always

[Anonymous Coward]

You are looking for priva-lite!

Re:You could always

[[000000]]

Or put a real window in /#!

Re:You could always

[Zeriel]

That's GREAT, AC!

Now, can you tell me how to set it so it wakes me up at the right time every day? Y'see, normally in winter, I'm out the door about an hour before sunrise, and I'd like to speed it up a little.

So where's the "set" controls? ...oh, BTW, yes, you ARE a complete dumbass.

Re:You could always

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a community forum / site being put together called VirtualWindow.org something worth checking out. It would be be nice to have a central resource for this kinda stuff.

Re:You could always

[mikael]

I always find the best remedy for motion sickness in boats and light planes is still:
- get some fresh air
- look at the horizon
- (if safe/possible) take the wheel/yoke

The main cause of motion sickness is the conflict of information from the inner ear (motion balance) and vision (motion of surroundings). Inside a ferry with no windows, everything appears stationary, but your inner ear tells you that you are moving. Looking at the horizon helps your brain synchronize the two sets of data, fresh air helps increase the oxygen going to your brain, and taking the whell/yoke also gives you motion feedback, also helping synchronize the two sets of input.

VR headsets in the past did give people "simulator sickness" as the update rates were rather slow (~7 frames second/0.5 second change rate). I experienced this myself with the "Virtuality" systems, which had a rate 500,000 triangle second. With today's PC's (and even laptops) the refresh and process rates are much faster. I believe the new handheld consoles have tilt mechanisms built in (for racing/flight simulation games).

Re:You could always

[nevermore94]

I have exactly that already. 3 lights (2 lamps and a halogen torchiere) programmed to get increasingly brighter over an hour. This program is then run out of my X10 ActiveHome module so I do not even need my computer on. This was a fairly cheap solution (at the time) and I would highly recommend it for anyone who is "not a morning person" like me.

Re:You could always

[ACPosterChild]

It's not just you. At night, I put an old soft t-shirt over my eyes so I can sleep. I don't know if it's because I got used to pitch-black nights growing up, or an extention of the way I can't truly concentrate on something unless I have no distractions, or what. But, unless I'm really tired (working out can help), I can't fall asleep if I can see light through my eyelids.

Re:You could always

[BandwidthHog]

So where's the "set" controls?

Well first you'll need a virgin, a large bonfire, two cows and three hundred pounds of Crisco...

Re:You could always

[Anonymous Coward]

And you could randomly loop a few seconds now and again to provide a 'glitch in the Matrix' feel.

wow

[pookguy]

he atleast should've tried to meet them, before he tried that

Re:wow

[Gentlewhisper]

Isn't that what they did in Resident Evil? (the office windows are all like this technology) or in Gattaca? (same) or even True Lies? (well, observe the dinner table Arnie and wifie eats at)

That space age technology is finally here!

We can enjoy the greatness of the outdoors from our homes at last!

There has never been a better place to be a geek!

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that was the case in Resident Evil, the Umbrella Corp.'s facilities were all underground, so they installed LCD window panels to simulate a nice sunny cityscape.

And it was Total Recall where they had a virtual display (it displayed some forest or something, and then the News came on).

I don't remember it in Gattaca though o_O

Coralized Link

[BobPaul]

Seeing as this was slow to load in the mysterious future, here's a coral cache of the link...

Re:Coralized Link

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy Cables, Batman!

Too late

[mindriot]

Sorry, I already replaced my Windows with Linux.

SCNR

Re:Too late

[einhverfr]

Funny. This is exactly how I read the headline the first time....

Now, it is talking about replacing your windows with Linux running LCD streeming video. But not your MS Windows....

Slashdot just got Weird.....

People with glass windows

[savagedome]

I had particularly ugly neighbors

The neighbor's response: "I had particularly ugly neighbors too"

Re:People with glass windows

[Anonymous Coward]

"... nor could they spell 'neighbours'".

Re:People with glass windows

[Anonymous Coward]

I did. She only asked me to buy her one drink but I had to pay her "manager" $20.

Re:People with glass windows

[Anonymous Coward]

I had particularly ugly neighbors

Which of course doesn't have anything to do with it considering there are no windows over a chimney.

Obviously...

[kaos.geo]

This MUST be a troll... The only other person I heard that had surplus LCD displays in such quantity as to build a window or "Live art Window" is Bill Gates. ;) p.s.: First post? :P

compatibility

[xtr_982]

Well, first you need two PCIE cards that have decent open Linux drivers so you can tweak them...good luck.

News For Nerds??

[Anonymous Coward]

This can't be right...TFA contains an article of a (presumably) real, live, breathing girl!

What have you done with my Slashdot??

/ducks

Re:News For Nerds??

[Anonymous Coward]

Girls have been around here for years.

-Natalie Portman

Re:News For Nerds??

[mabhatter654]

That's what /. is for! reading about girls....

cause that's as close as we're gonna get!

Re:News For Nerds??

[Digital11]

Speak for yourself :P

Re:News For Nerds??

[michrech]

That's what /. is for! reading about girls....

cause that's as close as we're gonna get!

Many of us just see a Woman, and nothing more, if you catch my drift. I think it's cool that she is into tech stuff (not enough females are, I feel). It's even more cool that she put up with having to solder the wiring for 8 LCD's.. =]

Re:News For Nerds??

[ZooDog]

He's been hard at work covering up all his windows for some time now. This is the same guy who posted his Cityscape Project a couple of years ago.

Absolutely Amazing

[erick99]

If nothing else, go look at this just to see the panels installed and "lit up." He does a good job explaining how he did this (it took about a year). The eight 15" LCD panels make two faux windows look stunning! I am impressed at folks that can imagine something like this and have the courage (and wallet) to see it through.

Cheers,

Erick

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT]

(and wallet)

I agree, it's amazing, but if I had eight 15" LCD's to spare, bare panels or no, I'd be using them for computing with.

YLFI

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[pla]

If nothing else, go look at this just to see the panels installed and "lit up."

Whoah!

Simply Amazing!

34 posts, and a person's personal site hasn't gone up in flames yet?

The hell with the LCD panels, I want to know his ISP!

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[simcop2387]

http://www.hoagy.org/virtualwindow/thumb/BuildCust omVideoCables.jpg
not only that she's a chick!

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[Gentlewhisper]

From the article:

Step 1: Proof of concept.
Step 2: Power for backlight inverter.
Step 3: Profit! Err, I mean tediously build custom video cables.

OMG!
SHE READS SLASHDOT!

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[xlv]

The hell with the LCD panels, I want to know his ISP!

It's not that complicated to find out... www.hoagy.org resolves as 208.184.121.21 which is is also 208.184.121.21.above.net so from that you should be able to figure out where it's hosted.

Tools like http://samspade.org/ are pretty useful for quickly finding more info on a host/IP address.

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[magefile]

Unless, say, you already had a bunch of boxes with LCDs ... or didn't have the desk/wall space for 'em.

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[xlv]

Grand parent: not only that she's a chick!

Parent: From the article:...
OMG!
SHE READS SLASHDOT!

Well obviously you didn't read the article that closely, just below that picture: Boy, Julie was sorry to have said that she wanted to help solder. and at the bottom of the page: © 2004 Ryan Hoagland so I doubt it's a girl's site and most certainly not the girl in the picture.

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[Jeff DeMaagd]

It looks like that the LCD panels were cast-offs from work. nVidia four DVI port Quadros aren't too expensive on eBay. Nothing else looks expensive.

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[Trogre]

No "she" isn't. According to the article, the girl in the picture is Julie, someone who helped out with the project.

The article is © 2004 Ryan Hoagland

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[gr0ngb0t]

not only that but HE also states - just under that picture interestingly enough - "Boy, Julie was sorry to have said that she wanted to help solder".

Now Im no rocket scientist, but I think that what he means by this is that this Julie person is a friend who helped out with soldering...

I dunno - just a hunch.

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[Bilestoad]

If it isn't obvious by now, "hoagy" has a shitload of money and good luck to him. His access to lots of quality hardware that has nothing better to do and enough leisure time to do this should have told you even if the slashdot-resistant hosting doesn't.

"A man will never admit that he is rich or that he is asleep" - Patrick O'Brian.

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[bergeron76]

I'm particularly impressed that the LCD's are even turned the correct way (90 degrees offset) to simulate a normal window.

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[suckmysav]

Yeah, it looks nice and all in a photo on a website.

I imagine it would look somewhat less impressive if you were there in person though. The lack of depth perspective would be painfully obvious as you walked past the "windows" and the static images would probably look a bit cheesy really.

They would look less like windows and more like pictures with window-like frames around them.

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[visgoth]

There's an easy solution to that: Everyone in the house must henceforth wear an eyepatch!

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[yasth]

You don't have depth perception from stereo vision past 20 feet or so. Also if you set them deep enough with straight surrounds you could reduce point of view variance (and since the panels are rotated and most panels have reduced viewing angle that way, it would be a good idea), combine all that with a distant shot (like the harbor scene chosen), and voila, relatively nice looking scene. Of course it would no more painfully lacking depth perception than any other static picture, So it isn't that bad.

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[suckmysav]

"You don't have depth perception from stereo vision past 20 feet or so"

I wasn't talking about that. I was referring to the fact that light travels in a straight line, so if you look *out* of a window from angle X you will see a different scene than you would if you were to look out from angle Y.

This is what I meant when I said "walk past the windows"

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[FLEB]

Lenticular array?

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[Z-MaxX]

There's an easy solution to that: Everyone in the house must henceforth wear an eyepatch!

Perfect! Because there are only 4 days, 00:40:06 left until International Talk Like A Pirate Day 2004!

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[hoagaboom]

Heh. I wish. The hardware is from dumpster diving.

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[hoagaboom]

Actually they look better in real life. It's very difficult to take a picture of even a real window while also exposing the room details. Most professional jobs fake it and paste in a window scene with an appropriately bright image.

Since the windows are on the far wall and can be seen from the family room, kitchen, living room, and dining room, there is minimal parallax effect lost. You effectively don't walk "past" the displays, but you can walk closer or farther away.

Static images do have their cheese factor, so you have to select them carefully. A beach shot, for example is going to look fake since the ocean isn't animated.

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[fucksl4shd0t]

I realize you were using Windows, but XFree86 (and X.org, presumably) has this great extension that would turn each window into a single desktop, and might even turn both windows into a single desktop, solving your problem entirely. Then you could use Mplayer or any of several video players to handle animating the shots for you.

In case you were wondering...

Re:Absolutely Amazing

[in10se]

He said he used "pre-cut images", so maybe its just the images that are 90 degrees offset.

Outside View

[usefool]

So if you want to look out the windows to see the real world (occassionaly), you just need to hook up a webcam and connect it to the LCD?

I hope the headline is inaccurate

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, you'll be the one having fun jumping through an LCD panel in an emergency.

Of course, the person that originally thought this up knew that, which is why he added fake windows instead of real ones.

Cruel but awesome........

[ARRRLovin]

I want to see the same concept executed using 30" Apple Cinema displays and have video of birds smashing into the "glass", like you're looking out of a skyscraper window.

Re:Cruel but awesome........

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, alternatively, the footage of 747 jets flying into those windows!

*ducks*!

Re:Cruel but awesome........

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, 9 out of 10 for funny, but minus several million for taste.

Re:Cruel but awesome........

[El_Smack]

And rig up a "knocker" like they used in the old Q*bert games, so there would be a real thump when the bird hit.

Re:Cruel but awesome........

[Anonymous Coward]

Or put the window on an outside wall, show video of a hot lady pigeon, and film the frustrated hilarity.

Re:Cruel but awesome........

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, birds taste better than 747s.

I hated being picked last too

[J-bob2]

Soon we will attain the goal of all geeks, to never have to see or go outside again. I suspect it has something to do with being picked last for kickball in Junior High.

Re:I hated being picked last too

[simcop2387]

actually i used to get picked first, (frist pcik!!!) i had pretty decent aim and could wallop the "pitcher" in the head fairly often (needless to say we didn't play much after that)

Plasma TV

[norm_z]

For all that effort. I'll buy a plasma tv instead.

Slow Glass?

[davidc]

This reminds me very much of the Bob Shaw story Other Days, Other Eyes where someone invents "Slow Glass". This substance slowed down the passage of light through it (a lot) and there evolved a market for panes of Slow Glass that had been sited near a spectacular view, for instance, and were subsequently installed as people's window panes. The lucky recipient thought s/he was looking out the window onto the original scene.
Given that we don't have Slow Glass readily available, the LCD idea rather appeals...

Re:Slow Glass?

[cft_128]

I really liked that short story, it has been years since I read it but I always think about it every time I see something about slowing light down, thanks for reminding who wrote it. Not a bad mystery angle to it too IIRC.

Re:Slow Glass?

[mikael]

With one of these LCD panels, a microdrive and a miniature web-cam or firewire camera (for higher resolution), you could probably do this.

Re:Slow Glass?

[G-funk]

Erm, if you slow the light down, won't it shift into the invisible spectrum?

Re:Slow Glass?

[timeOday]

I wonder if the LCD could be detached from its backlight and placed in front of a real window (or a frosted piece of glass). This would illuminate the image enough to be usable in a room with real natural lighting. In the nighttime, you could always light it up artifically like a normal lcd.

Re:Slow Glass?

[fred fleenblat]

Presumably it would work like real glass: the light slows down upon entering the glass and then regains its original speed upon exiting.

Re:Slow Glass?

[Fweeky]

You'd think it only remains slow inside the glass.. but hey, it's magic, anything can happen ;)

Re:Slow Glass?

[nygeek]

"Other Days, Other Eyes" (1972) is based on his earlier short story "Light of Other Days" (1966).

Re:Slow Glass?

[pumpkinescobarsof2]

i liked that one too, great story

Re:Slow Glass?

[G-funk]

Ah, I thought it was supposed to spread it out, so what you saw outside kinda came throught the other side for longer, not that it just delayed it.

But if it's just like regular gass but super light-resistant, wouldn't it then become a mirror as the coefficient of refraction went towards 1 or 0 (high school physics is kinda hazy)

Re:Slow Glass?

[Isbiten]

Here it is it's worth the read.

Re:Slow Glass?

[ealar dlanvuli]

From the description in the story, the light doesn't slow much but rather gets trapped inside the glass going in circles.

this is kind of a cool idea

[John_Allen_Mohammed]

right now it's probably now very cost friendly for most people. In the future though, I can imagine city dwelling people, maybe someone in New York/L.A. etc, just outright boarding up all the windows. Replace them with an array of LCD's that have a live or recorded image of the beautiful countryside, or mountainous range of colorado.... moving from dusk to dawn, to give the sense of realtime scenery.

I couldn't think of a better escape from the urban nightmare that I live in right now. If it were affordable, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Re:this is kind of a cool idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't think of a better escape from the urban nightmare that I live in right now.

Gosh, you could, I don't know, MOVE?!?

Re:this is kind of a cool idea

[comwiz56]

one problem: When was the last time a 'beautiful countryside' sounded like a freakin highway?

Re:this is kind of a cool idea

[John_Allen_Mohammed]

Hrm... true, that can be a problem for some. Maybe one solutio, although it can be quite a bit of work. Coverup all the walls with 1" drywall. That should deaden any sound from the outside environment. I know of one person that installed two layers of 1" drywall to isolate the room. It's heavy and hard to work with but it's really good stuff.

Luckily I live on the 27th floor, not much noise up here except 747's...

Re:this is kind of a cool idea

[tylernt]

You may find that cheap, light foam board insulation (such as Celotex) is a good sound dampener as well. You can also use it to avoid detection when growing pot.

Re:this is kind of a cool idea

[RicktheBrick]

I think we should build our homes underground. Virtual windows would make it seem like they were above ground. It would mean an enormous savings in heating and weather damage. If we could make them water proof they could even make it through hurricanes and floods. If we could also build our roads underground than we could have totally automatic transportation(driverless).

Re:this is kind of a cool idea

[mshiltonj]

right now it's probably now very cost friendly for most people

If you could embed hardware into the frame (all firmware), and then have a USB port to load images/video, you could just hang it on the wall and update the screen by swapping out a USB key-chain sized drive.

I think this idea has a market. College dorms, crappy apartments, etc.

amazing

[daddymac]

the jealousy is oozing from my pores. This is amazingly amazing.

Re:amazing

[Country_hacker]

Are you talking about the LCD's, or the Hot Chick (tm) weilding the soldering iron??? w00t!! ;-)

Re:amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, like YOU can pick and choose any Hot Girl you want. You're just jealous.

Re:amazing

[daddymac]

Nah, I've got one of those.

LCD picture frame

[usefool]

What's the difference between this and Build Your Own LCD Picture Frame

Re:LCD picture frame

[Vaevictis666]

For starters, this is 8 LCDs, powered by two quad-head nvidia cards. Then they were mounted inside the wall.

Other than that, same principle.

Re:LCD picture frame

[Anonymous Coward]

this one is way more cool!

Translucency?

[mind21_98]

Are there any LCD panels out there that are translucent? That would be the next logical step. Imagine being able to change the brightness of a window by sending certain signals to the LCD. Plus this would produce the natural light everyone needs.

Re:Translucency?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no reason to use a LCD for this; if the lcd was translucent, all that would happen is you wouldn't be able to see the image on the screen anymore because it would mesh with what's outside...

There's much simpler ideas (and much more complicated ideas, including ones involving solar power cells) that allow you to just as easily change brightness

Re:Translucency?

[Kurayamino-X]

yes, and done.
theres been stuff like LCD clock keychains that are just a small peice of black plastic and a transparent LCD screen for about a decade.

there are public toilets in melbourne that have that 'insta-frost' glass that's clear when the stalls are vacant, and LCD turns them frosted when occupied.

however, the frosted glass isn't ordered, the crystals don't have to be aligned in any particular way. fabricating an LCD that goes from clear to black that's large enough for a window has prooven something of a challenge, but i'm pretty sure it's been done.

Re:Translucency?

[LowBrow]

I think the person who made the windows from the 8 LCD panels may have been inspired by this article or the segment on TV:

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquire r/ business/7707872.htm

Andersen windows has made a showcase house for this purpose. "The exotic windows resemble those you'd see in a normal house - until they change colors or start showing you the latest "Friends" episode." Neat stuff

Re:Translucency?

[wass]

LCD's 'shutters' exist that do this.

Another similar thing is using two layers of linearly-polarized glass. Hold one layer fixed, and rotate the other layer to go from almost full transparency to almost full opacity.

There is a company that sells airline windows like this, and it would be pretty trivial to wire a motor to turn the layer appropriately, or even automatically to keep room brightness constant.

Re:Translucency?

[Keighvin]

All LCD panels are translucent, elsewhise the backlight would be entirely ineffective.

They work like this:

1. Plasma backlight source provides whitish illumination.
2. Red, Green, and Blue subpixel LCDs sandwiched between two layers of glass selectively obstruct this light to either pass through easily at one of these colors (the three together perceived as white) or block it out.
3. User perceives cohesive image.

This is grossly oversimplified, others (or googling or howstuffworks) can expound on the details.

Now, if the backlight and its reflectors were removed, you'd only be seeing light coming through from whatever sources lay beyond it; overlaid on a window the natural light would be used, though probably inefficiently (normal LCDs depend on polarization for crisp presentation, some natural bleed would probably result from other sources).

I'm probably wrong. But I'm also done.

Re:Translucency?

[NeuralAbyss]

What part of Melbourne? I saw a couple of windows like this around a fishtank out at Tulla when I flew to Calif the other month.. but never heard of toilets using that.

Re:Translucency?

[Anonymous Coward]

You could add proper filters to get the right polarization, but LCDs only pass a portion of the light from the backlight. Each cell only passes red, blue or grean (~1/3). There's some black between cells (~1/10) and then some light is lost in the polarization filters (~1/2). All together, I'd estimate only 15% of the light is passed. That's for a white image. Then again, my office has window screens that only pass 10% of the light, so I can have my blinds open and see my screen.

Re:Translucency?

[Kurayamino-X]

around the new developments at the docklands.
i've seen pictures, but i'm not exactly going to go out and hunt said toilets down.
i'm pretty sure they are somewhere in the vecinity of the wierdass icecream stand =P

Re:Translucency?

[daddymac]

The URL got munged. here's a correction.

Re:Translucency?

[famebait]

But what I'd really like, and which would need LCDs is this:

Track my face, and the sun, and blot out the glare with a well-placed blob of "dark" in betwen them. But don't dim the rest of the view.

Especially nice in a car, but my office (and my mood) would benefit too. When I don't have to shut out the view of a mice day every time it's a nice day. Now for that paper-white reflective monitor and I'm all set for next summer...

Replacing Neighbors

[Snap E Tom]

Now he can have some porn chick neighbors!

Voyeur's Best Friend

[SeattleGameboy]

Awesome!!! Now I... I mean your friendly neighborhood peeping tom can have a lookie-lookie all you want without the hassles.

Sony booth at the CEDIA Expo

[norminator]

At the CEDIA Expo in Indianapolis last week, Sony actually had a booth like this where on the outside they had video screens that looked like Windows into the booth. Don't know what they used, though. I didn't even look close enough to see if they were LCDs or not.

Re:Sony booth at the CEDIA Expo

[LiquidCoooled]

perhaps they really were just windows into the booth...

split video SDL?

[sPaKr]

Wasnt there a SDL demo of split video? As I recall most graphics packages use split video support as a dog and pony show. Heres hoping it doesnt look like a donky show!

Get ride of the window panes...

[mentalflossboy]

and play video games at 3072x2048. Now wouldn't that be awesome?

Should have eye tracking

[rmadhuram]

Should also have an eye tracking system to show the images from any angle, which might not be possible since you need a 3D model.. Also, what if more than one person sees through the window?

Re:Should have eye tracking

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the field of view limitations of the LCD would prevent that from being useful anyway.

Depth?

[PreDefined]

Certainly an impressive undertaking but somehow it just doesn't sit right. The image depth is what my mind would be questionning. I mean if you don't actually feel like it's really out there then it may as well just be a nice photograph that you've glued over your windowpanes.

Re:Depth?

[p7]

Nevermind that your view won't pan around as you move around. Could be a bit disconcerting. Still kinda cool.

Re:Depth?

[nusratt]

"doesn't sit right. The image depth is what my mind would be questionning."

Wasn't there a recent story about headwear-free 3D LCDs?
Looks like this guy would have the $$.

Re:Depth?

[bergeron76]

Be patient. This is only a first step. What do you want a NASA rendering?

It will take a project like this to lead to a project where the image actually changes as a viewer passes (as you portend). On his website he clearly mentions that he's [going to be] working on a motion video version when the hardware is available. Using wireless tech and pioneers like this guy it's easy to think someday that will be possible.

I think it's a fantastic project and a great hack; I'd be very thrilled if it was in my home.

Re:Depth?

[coaxial]

Certainly an impressive undertaking but somehow it just doesn't sit right. The image depth is what my mind would be questionning. I mean if you don't actually feel like it's really out there then it may as well just be a nice photograph that you've glued over your windowpanes

Perhaps if the image was projected onto a concave mirror like in a flight sim. People have been doing it their homes, but I don't know how feasible a concave mirror would be in this situation, since you need to keep the whole projection system pretty compact.

Of course, like everyone else here, I'm talking out my ass.

Re:Depth?

[Civil_Disobedient]

Well, since it's a display panel, you could add animation of some kind that spanned the displays -- a boat floating by the water outside, for example. This doesn't fix the problems that will occur with parallax, however. The only way to do that would be to push the panels back a couple of feet (and use enormous panels), then put some glass in the windows. That way, when you walk past the windows, new parts of the image are revealed.

Anybody else reminded of that scene in Total Recall when they saw this?

Next step: get a big enough matrix of LCD panels that, when put seamlessly next to each other, can mount on a wall and project famous works of art.

Re:Depth?

[RichardX]

There are already headgear-free 3D LCDs out there - lots of companies make them now, here's one

They basically work with a lenticular lens which directs alternate lines of the screen in different directions, so one eye sees half the lines and the other sees the other half

Creative

[comwiz56]

This has to be one of the most creative uses of technology I've seen on /. Great job!

Now theres gotta be some really funny/interesting images you could put on those? How about a bunch of people peering in (add some speakers and you could really scare some houseguests)?

Also, does the computer change brightness/images to match the time of day?

Re:Creative

[fucksl4shd0t]

Better yet, do up all your windows like this and then write a little 3d program to simulate a cartoon world or something. You could live in Greyskull, or Doom, or wherever. And you can even have He-Man running around outside defeating Skeletor in his plot to take the castle. ;)

That would be pretty cool.

I was thinking outer space scenes would be pretty cool too. Starship battles happing outside your house. Hell, you could have the rebel assault on the Death Star going on. ;)

Re:MARS

[Lispy]

Sorry, but compared to the view from my basementroom I'd take San Fran anytime...

Windows Blue Screen?

[MonkeyCookie]

I could just imagine the shock of the guy's grandma coming over, looking out the window, and suddenly seeing the Windows BSOD appear in the window.

Re:Windows Blue Screen?

[MonkeyCookie]

Or even better... you can have the window play a video. A guest will be enjoying the sight of trees swaying in the wind or something, and some thug-looking guy will suddenly be looking in the window, scaring the crap out of them.

Oh, the mischief you could make with those things!

Re:Windows Blue Screen?

[WiseWeasel]

Better be an old person w/ pretty poor eyesight, as I doubt the resolution (or color and contrast accuracy) on these things would be very convincing. It's a nice dream, but might have to wait for ultra-high-rez OLED displays.

Re:Windows Blue Screen?

[displaced80]

As long as it doesn't say:

REALITY.SYS not found. Universe halted.

'cos having that appear in place of every view of the outside world might cause a wave of terror.

A better idea..

[ubiquitin]

...is to put up a white sheet on your window and then aim a nice bright projector at it. This lets your neighbors enjoy your video (albeit inverted left-to-right) and works suprisingly well.

Cruise ship's inside cabins

[usefool]

Most inside cabins in cruise ships have fake windows, i.e. a picture that looks like a window that looks like you're looking at the sea.

So this "invention" might be a good way to relay actual sea views in those cabins.

I don't undetstand this...

[Zakabog]

The reason for two windows instead of one is simply because the best place for them in my house is on that wall and the fireplace limits things significantly

He says the fireplace limits things significantly but I don't understand how it limits him to two windows instead of one. Was he going to make a huge window but the fireplace limited the space? Couldn't he have put it on another wall? It's a little odd having a window above a fireplace, that isn't looking directly inside of your chimney. Although it is possible to have a fireplace without a chimney, I have one inside my house.

Re:I don't undetstand this...

[nadeldave]

It forced him to put 2 windows instead of one(Probably) because he couldnt drill directly into the chimney behind the wall, nor could he mount a frame there without some serious problems with the integrity of it.

Re:I don't undetstand this...

[hoagaboom]

The vWindow was originally planned to be 4x3 panels (12 panels total) and in our previous house on a wall that didn't have a fireplace.

The fireplace cuts down on the vertical space available and a 4x3 window would not fit. So since a viewer could imagine a metal conduit chimney suspended between the windows, I elected to go that route since the wall was otherwise ideal.

I do agree that the fireplace is very unfortunate, but I won't be remodeling that wall for quite some time, so it'll just have to do for now. (The tree also hides a hideous AC unit)

Disturbing...

[saturnino]

This reminds me a lot of Farenheit 451 with the TV's on every wall in the living room. Scary thought...

...said the LCD manufacturer

[phobos13013]

This post has got to be influenced by the booming LCD market. Come on, unless you have ONE 15" window, there is no freaking way the average joe could afford to plaster say four windows averaging about 50" (in my TINY apt) with LCDs... and why would you want to, why not jus put up tin foil and look all fifties sci-fi like everyone else?!

X.ORG + Xinerama will let you do this.

[reality-bytes]

If you simply have multiple PCIE cards in the same system, X.ORG and Xinerama will allow you to do this by building a 'desktop' of four screens - you can then playback 'fullscreen' video across all four.

The dual-head functionality of some cards could let you get away with just 2 cards as well.

One drawback is that as far as I know, OpenGL is not implemented in Xinerama yet (not such a worry for video tho).

Re:X.ORG + Xinerama will let you do this.

[rtcmedic]

Video Lan Client(VLC) http://www.videolan.org/ has a video filter called Wall (Found under preferences, modules, video filter 1). You can specify the number of rows and columns, and it will break a stream up into blocks. I use two monitors using the TwinView option for X. I can place each 'video block' anywhere on the desktop. Just one of the MANY way cool features of VLC. Enjoy!

Re:X.ORG + Xinerama will let you do this.

[Frogbert]

Yes but it would be about 500 times more stuffing around for the same result.

Re:X.ORG + Xinerama will let you do this.

[FlashBuster3000]

While the second Xinerama screen doesn't support OpenGL (and probably any other HW-acceleration?) Twinview for Nvidia-card does.
It's pretty much the same as Xinerama, but has HW-acceleration.
There's something similar for Ati-cards, too, but I don't know how good it works.

Re:X.ORG + Xinerama will let you do this.

[fucksl4shd0t]

Aha, but the real question is, why won't my motherboard let me put two video cards in it? It won't initialize with two video cards. ;(

Re:Julie

[Anonymous Coward]

The important question is: does she do anal?

Windo'hs

[UnixRawks]

Just make sure not to replace your windows with Windows.

To answer the question...

[Anonymous Coward]

What's AGP/PCI/PCIX run at? 17 peak gbit/sec througput or some such?

*counts fingers*
PCI-e 1x runs at 4gbit/sec and you can at the least have PCI-e 8x... 4*8 = 32 gbit/sec througput. Double what you could get now, dunno about the availibility of nvidia cards with 4 dvi outs though..

Porn and Parents

[$exyNerdie]

Can you imagine your parents visiting and you click on that porn video file by mistake. Your parents would be able to see the wild sex outside the window!!

Not very observant

[El_Smack]

"The only reason the cables are visible is becase the stupid fireplace is in the way and that wall isn't due to be remodeled for quite a while."

What, he didn't notice the fireplace *before* he started the project?

Re:Not very observant

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Seems appropriate that she chose VB as a solution to implement this. One Q&D kludge deserves another..

Nice

[A non moose cow]

I think I would probably loop "Mars Attacks" on them when my mother in law was over.

Am I the only one...

[butters the odd]

Who saw this and thought "Now wouldn't this be great for porn?"

Back to the Future

[Zordak]

Am I the only one reminded of Back to the Future II, where they have this exact thing in the house (except its broken, 'cause Michael J. Fox's character is poor).

A fun side project: Hook these up to a high-end SGI machine, install a digital camcorder to film the real view out your window, and replace your ugly neighbors with attractive digital characters in real time.

Re:Back to the Future

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't the "exact thing". In Back to the Future 2 it was an image on a window shade.

Re:Back to the Future

[imsabbel]

Yeah, but for the needed money you could hire real live playmates to camp in your garden... plus a new house, too ...

This is fantastic, and you could upgrade...

[cbreaker]

To those sweet 3D LCD screens once they become more commonplace. Think about how cool that would be!

My bedroom doesn't have much in the way of windows, so this would be awesome. With the prices of LCD's dropping the way they are, anyone could do this.

And if you used normal VGA/DVI screens, not weird custom signal ones like ones he has, it would be super easy to do.

Good job!

Full Motion Video at 3xxx*2xxx

[imsabbel]

Forget it. Wait another 5years of moores law and come again. Or buy a a SERIOUS sgi machine (the onyx 4 could do it, but only with 8+cpus) with a storage network that can deliver the needed 150MByte+ video datarate...

Here's a suggestion, follow electrical codes.

[deathcow]

Dont burn your house down by rigging this up in a way where 120V power cords are running inside your walls. (I realize the page author does not have this.) If you use 120V wiring inside a wall that is not in an NEC approved manner, and your house burns down, you might be liable.

This includes not being able to have an outlet mounted inside a wall nearby the frame, in a permanently inaccessible location. No, the fact that you can remove drywall to access it does not make it accessible. Now, maybe if the entire frame swung open on recessed hinges to a finished space with a normally mounted outlet, OK. But best ask the inspector.

Many people will say "Ahh but this is low voltage power wiring" so, there isn't much danger. True, for DVI video signalling, but what about powering the backlighting?

But when the voltage is low, the current is high, and the potential is still there to create heat.

For example. You've probably got some big-ass wires carrying 100 amp or 200 amp service into your house. But if you go out to the power pole, you'll see the transformer which feeds your big wires has a extremely tiny wire getting it's power from the overhead lines. At the high voltages of transmission lines, small wires easily carry the small currents. At the low voltages going into your house, big wires carry the larger currents. Whats the same? The amount of power being carried.

So never assume stuffing 12V cords through a wall is safe just because the voltage is so low. How much power is involved?

great

[Anonymous Coward]

Now management will outfit cubicles with these instead of giving people actual offices with windows (and doors!).

Are your neighbors uglier than you?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

I ask because mirrors are fairly inexpensive.

Re:Are your neighbors uglier than you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just slashdot your house and mirrors will pop up spotaneously free of cost.

Re:Here's a suggestion, follow electrical codes.

[deathcow]

That sure reads funky, but I'm not on crack, just distracted.

ugly neighbors??

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure you aren't confusing windows with mirrors???

Fantasy scapes?

[JThundley]

I can't wait until this guy gets really creative and creates some "alternative" landscapes for the windows, such as:

Space (orbiting planets, floating in space, flying through space)
Hell
Underwater
Psychadelic
Riots
Sea
Wild West

damn, I ran out of ideas quicky :(

Re:Fantasy scapes?

[dacarr]

Well, you did say fantasy. Code up your D&D world and have fun. =^_^=

Uhm...let me think.

[Maudib]

No.

Ugly neighbours?

[tasinet]

I'm your neighbour, and I can't say you're a supermodel either.

That's why I already covered my windows with mirrors [they use about 91.3% less bandwidth], and I keep the LCDs for Linux.

Light Of Other Days

[nygeek]

Some years ago (1966) a science fiction writer named Bob Shaw wrote a slightly maudlin short story called "Light Of Other Days" (not the recent novel by Clarke and Baxter) that featured a material called "slow glass." Slow glass propagates light very slowly, so you see through it what was visible to it some amount of time in the past.

Here's the story. The concept in the story is based on some homogeneous material, but that's a nit.

Next project for this guy should be "slow glass."

Julie

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else see Julie soldering and completely forget about the lcd windows....

A suggestion

[26199]

If you don't have any luck getting a single video playing on a multi-screen Xinerama display, you could use mplayer's crop function to play the relevant parts of the same video on each display, using separate instances of mplayer.

'man mplayer' has plenty of details, just search for 'crop'. The tricky part will be making all of them start at exactly the same time :-)

How about using 2 pc's?

[starbuck8968]

He could try using 2 pcs to get around the PCI bandwidth limitation. It'll have to synchronize the images/movies somehow, but I think its doable. I bet someone can code something up pretty quickly.

the best...

[Anonymous Coward]

a cool idea, but this guy got 8 (presumably free) unwanted lcd's from work and the best he could think of is 2 virtual windows?

1 more and he could have one fairly decent 3x3 movie screen

Finally!

[electrick]

At last I can pretend my house is in Peter Jacksons interpretation of middle earth! Compleate with the handsome Aragorn standing guard outside.

That's a good idea actually :-)

[MacDork]

Put the 'windows' on the outside of the house, then you could create all sorts of interesting things for the nosy folks across the street to witness :-)

• Aurora Borealis? At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country? Localized entirely within your kitchen?

:-)

Re:That's a good idea actually :-)

[Peale]

(long pause)

Can I see?

Re:That's a good idea actually :-)

[Artifakt]

The pesky neighbors keep forming mobs with pitchforks and torches while I'm still tightening the neckbolts... Oh, you said kitchen... Nevermind!

Re:That's a good idea actually :-)

[Big Nothing]

*coughgoatsecough*

Re:That's a good idea actually :-)

[goodydot]

even better, install the windows in your neighbor's house. They'll wonder why your face is always at the window, or at least wonder why the sun is still up at 3am. "Gee...it was just raining outside when I last looked out the window. Hmmm"

This guy is my hero.

[sTalking_Goat]

8 15" LCD panels just laying around? Hot chicks helping him solder? ...solder?

Who are you and how can I have your life?

Re:This guy is my hero.

[jasmusic]

Simple. Don't be a pushover that says, "Hey look guys! A hot chick!"

Re:This guy is my hero.

[hashwolf]

"Hot chicks helping him solder? ...solder?"

I used to work in a small factory that had 30 girls doing hand soldering, and oh boy, I can tell you they were really good at it. I'm not bad with a soldering iron myself, but these girls were exceptional! They were hot too!

However, for sake of completeness I have to say that only four of them knew something about electronics. All the others just knew what the symbols on the board meant and what was supposed to be soldered in.

Re:This guy is my hero.

[edunbar93]

Heh. Once upon a time (roughly around the bubble, I might add) there was a belief that many geeks were kinky. While this may just be FUD, I know through personal experience that many kinky people are geeks. And that my friend, is how at least a few of us get laid a lot.

That and we're a little older than 17.

Re:This guy is my hero.

[bios10h]

Arrrghhhh

Re:This guy is my hero.

[ivan256]

I did some linux porting work to a new platform once, and frequently worked in the lab of the company that made the mainboard of the computer I was working on when things didn't work as documented. There was this woman there who would rework the board I was using when I found a problem who was amazing with a soldering iron. I once saw her solder on a row of bus termination resistors, all tiny surface mount componants... There were 32 of them, and they came on a tape for a machine to apply them to a board in manufacturing. She peeled the seal off, and did this little flip thing with the tape while dragging the iron across the board and had one side of every resistor soldered to the board in under a second. I'm convinced she is the goddess of soldering.

What does this guy do for a living?

[Krypto420]

15" LCD monitors (8x$275.95) - $2207.60
Nvidia Quadro4 PCI video cards (2x$102.00) - $204.00
Windows frames (2x$500?) - $1000.00
Decent computer - $1500.00
Misc. Parts(wires, brackets, etc) - $250.00
Grand estimated total - $5161.60

...and this is probably a low estimate.

Sheesh!! If I have some extra cash I can afford the "good" beer and only hope the view from my window looks better.... must be nice

Re:What does this guy do for a living?

[ARRRLovin]

It's more like this:
15" LCD monitors (8x$0) - $0 Nvidia Quadro4 PCI video cards (2x$102.00) - $204.00 Windows frames (2x$20max) - $40.00 Decent computer - $600.00 Misc. Parts(wires, brackets, etc) - $250.00 Grand estimated total - $1094.00

Even cheaper if he had the computer laying around. The window frames were just custom wood frames. Dirt cheap for materials.

Re:What does this guy do for a living?

[Krypto420]

I meant this as an estimate for a DIY project for people reading this. Besides, the LCD monitors would be the most expensive part of the project. Who has an extra LCD monitor laying around, let alone 8?!?!?! (well, besides this guy)

Dear Slashdot

[Letter]

Dear Slashdot,

This reminds me of the New Yorker cartoon where two guys are looking at an apparent flat HDTV on the wall. One of them says to the other, "It's not an HDTV -- it's a window."

Laughs,
Letter

Wardriving!

[xsupergr0verx]

I wish this technology was consumer and commonplace. Then you could wardrive someone's network and goatse all their LCD windows...

Re:Wardriving!

[zulux]

Then you could wardrive someone's network and goatse all their LCD windows...


That just great....Goatse.cx is now also a verb?

I'll be sure to slip that into any ESL curriculum that I can:

Verb: Goatsecx (Irregular)

I goatse
You goatsecx
He/She goatsecx
We goatsexes
They goatseces

Examples:

Bob goatsexed the other day - and now has trouble sitting in a chair.
The whole family spent a evening goatsecing - and now nobody can find the TV remote.

Re:Wardriving!

[xsupergr0verx]

I use 'goatse' as a verb quite often. But not in the stretchy sense, more in the "tricked" or "screwed" sense.

"I didn't have enough in my savings account, and the bank just goatsed me out of a $15 fee."

Re:Wardriving!

[Big Nothing]

"I wish this technology was consumer and commonplace. Then you could wardrive someone's network and goatse all their LCD windows..."

OMFG - I wanted LCD windows like these up until the point where I read your post.

Now all my disgust are belong to you.

Re:Wardriving!

[stormhair]

I wish this technology was consumer and commonplace. Then you could wardrive someone's network and goatse all their LCD windows...

...and then their windows would merely be large holes in the wall...

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

The real question still exists, why does this guy have so many LCDs and why doesnt he give me some, I would settle for two..

realistic?

[azatht]

How realistic is the view gonna be in only 2D? It would just look like an ordinary screen for me.

New Gforce 9800?

[DuckWing]

How about using the new video card now in the Apple PowerMac G5's to power the Apple 30" LCD Screen? I think it's the GForce 9800 or something but my number may be off. It has 2 dual DVI outputs, so you can probably do one window with it anyway.

Ugly Neighbors?!

[Geburah]

- Author of this story = Hoagaboom

- Hoagaboom's slashdot ID link leads to www.hoagy.org

- whois on www.hoagy.org leads to:

Ryan Hoagland
1 Infinite loop
Cupertino, CA 95014 US

- Map quest verifies this address is real

- Terraserver verifys what appears to be a corporate plaza

- A Google search on this address reveals that this is "Apple Corporate Headquarters"

- Crap. Dead end. Hoagaboom is a liar. :)

My goal was to find out where he lived, systematically pinpoint his neighbors residence, obtain their contact information, then notify them by phone that their neighbor Ryan thinks they are ugly, then post the recorded phone conversation for you all to listen to. Oh well. I tried. :)

Re:Ugly Neighbors?!

[Anonymous Coward]

lol

Re:Ugly Neighbors?!

[Paul Carver]

Well, if he works for Apple and used his office address to register his personal web site (perhaps to avoid publishing his home address) then that might explain why he had a bunch of 15" LCDs without bezels or power supplies. He says in the article that he had a bunch of unwanted LCDs from work. Now that Apple doesn't make iMacs with anything smaller than a 17" LCD they may well have leftover 15" models that they can't use and can't resell.

Re:Ugly Neighbors?!

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

In one of the pictures, you can see the plastic frame of an Apple 15 inch LCD panel (white ADC connector type) with the front plate removed.

So..... most likely prototypes or something like that what you said.

VLC

[sqrammi]

VLC is the way to go. There is a plugin that will let you split the video up into multiple windows. It works GREAT.

http://www.videolan.org/

Airflow...

[krahd]

I dunno about you, but one of the main uses of my windows back at home is allowing the air to come in (and out) of my house.

I think that the perfect setup would be a LCD window, that can be opened (just as a regular one), and that can made translucent, ranging from a standard glass' window to a full opaque (like the virtual one presented here).

Just a side (OT) note, anyone else noticed that he masked his email address to avoid spam, leaving the mailto: target untouched?!?

--krahd

Re:Airflow...

[msim]

Yeah i noticed this too.

i figure that the spambots would get them both if he doesnt change them soonish.

if its not too late that is..... ;-)

Re:Airflow...

[RedVortex]

Gee man ! I noticed it too ! hehehe

When I saw it, I thought to myself: "Stupid geek (to myself), this guy created an amazing thing and the only f*cking thing you can notice is the mailto: untouched! C'mon, get a life!"

And I thought I was weird, seems I'm not unique after all !

RedVortex

Re:Airflow...

[hoagaboom]

The mailto address will get obfuscated after the 24 hour Slashdot effect has passed. For now I'm being nice and letting people email me without the trouble.

I wish

[dg41]

I could have a few flat panels just laying around.

Another interesting project this guy worked on

[slobber]

Pretty cool, actually:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/start.h tm l?pg=6

it's the 6800

[DuckWing]

Replying to my own post, I know but I went and checked. It's the 6800.

old vcr trick

[Chuck Bucket]

this reminds me of the old VCR tapes, the ones you could get that were just of burning logs, or of a fish aquairum; it would look like you had something you didn't. of course back then the tech wasn't nearly what it was today, so a window of a strange outdoor scene could produce the needed 'wow' factor that previously was unattainable.

CBLJKSDF

VLC will split

[no_such_user]

I was playing with VideoLAN a week ago, and noticed it has a video filter module called "wall" (this is under WinXP, FWIW) which will split your stream into as many multiple windows as your machine can handle. So, split your video stream into four windows, move each one to its own display, and full-screen them. I haven't played with VLC under Linux, but I'm guessing it has the same options.

Great project, BTW! I've been thinking of doing something like this for a while. Good luck!

wow

[Anonymous Coward]

that's very clever work... I like it--- what?? wait a second. VB app!

it suxors!

Split screens

[benow]

I've been thinking of surround stereoscopic gaming a bit, and the same solution may apply, if it's not overkill... that is to have a pcie xinerama setup, using dual head dvi cards. Each xinerama screen correlates to a display. On each display is a piece of the video/rendered environment. For video, a video mutator of some sort would be needed to be coded, perhaps as an element in gstreamer, each segment going to a full screen sdl window. For a virtual environment, it's a bit easier, with multiple viewports, the rendering of each going to a sdl window the size of the destination screen. With a couple dual head cards, appropriate software and four (homebrew) projectors, it would be possible to have a wall sized immersive steroscopic environment.

I'm unsure about the possibility/status of opengl accelleration across both xinerama screens on a single card, and also accelleration across multiple screens on multiple cards, but the theory is sound, and the tech is (nearly) there.

Correct Link

[slobber]

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/start.htm l?pg=6

Hide the Cables / PC Box

[theraccoon]

Why not make an attempt to hide the PC and cables? Perhaps some fake plants or a fake bookshelf (that ledge doesn't look big enough to house actual books -- so cut off the spines from a bunch of books, glue em together, and TADA!). I dunno, be creative! You've already proven you're somewhat clever what with the actual windows. Why stop there?

I'd also get a fern or table or SOMETHING to hide the PC with. Cause boy, it's really pretty till you see the Big Ugly Box.

Just a thought... it's otherwise very, very cool. I wish I had the m4d 1337 skillz to put something like that together.

Re:This is totally stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that but on most LCDs you cannot see anything unless you look at the LCD from a direction that is close to 90 degrees with the LCD surface. Unless you install latest cutting edge LCDs, you wont't even be able to see the whole window from one viewing point if it's bigger than 20". It will be cheaper to pay some porn actors play behind a real window than to execute this ridiculous idea.

Dude!

[kvn]

Apply for a patent! You could sell tons of these things! Your target market would be the people who use weather applets (or web pages) to see what the weather is like, rather than GOING/LOOKING OUTSIDE.

After all, there are plenty of people with more money than sense.

Super cool hardware hack, though...

Re:Dude!

[iMaple]

Your target market would be the people who use weather applets (or web pages) to see what the weather is like, i.e. about all the slashdot viewers ... I mean why does any one ever get out of their chair and *walk* over to the windows just to know what the weather is like. I mean if there is a fire in the house, then maybe 1/3rd of the people might go out instead of trying to activate their X11 based fire extinguishers and emailing 911.

Re:Dude!

[hughk]

It kind of sucks when you work about two security doors and a hundred metres away from daylight. Do you take a coat or a jacket when you go out for lunch or don't you? Checking a webcam or current weather was a regular pre-lunch activity.

Re:This is totally stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

"However with this LCD crap you only see it from one angle: THAT IS CALLED FRAMED PICTURE!"

Go change the pictures in your frames 4-5 times a day, then we'll talk.

"Why are you spending all that much money and time for this?"

You fuckstick. He's having fun, and being creative. Dont be Mr. Grumpy pants because your boring and jealous.

DMX?

[Anonymous Coward]

for linux, you could use DMX, and if you wanted OpenGL for that, Chromium works with DMX :)

Total isolation on offer.

[Mortiss]

Hear ye, Hear ye!

Finally grand dream of the geek comes true. Possblity of the total isolation from the outside world (those pesky sun rays, other people who might actually want to talk to you in person)and its still done in high tech manner with no need to use primitive bricks and mortar.

And wait there is more: You can display your favourite games landscape complete with purple skies and those horny female aliens.

Another impractical mod

[Trogre]

Now *this* IMO is what Slashdot, News for Nerds is all about!

As there is no depth perception, the only practical benefit of this set-up over a photo pasted on the window is that you can change the picture more easily (recall that he can't use it for FMV). But that's not the point. It has immense geek karma, if there is such a thing.

Good for him.

Re:Another impractical mod

[Kris_J]

FMV might be out of the question, but slowly fading from one pic to another each minute would keep the apparent time outside in sync with the time inside. That would rock.

from the article....

[the-build-chicken]

Boy, Julie was sorry to have said that she wanted to help solder. [snip: picture of girl soldering]

It's quite amazing the length geeks will go to in order to prove to other /.ers that they really do have a girlfriend.

Re:from the article....

[Mike Buddha]

I don't see any mention of her being his girlfriend. The candid photo slyly inserted into the mix implies that this is so, but never says it...

Nice of him to mention her name in the text as well. The picture by itself might have been too subtle.

Re:from the article....

[Mullen]

I don't see any mention of her being his girlfriend. The candid photo slyly inserted into the mix implies that this is so, but never says it...

Nice of him to mention her name in the text as well. The picture by itself might have been too subtle.

Your right, but if you look around his site, you can find this pic of her in a bikini top on their trip to Mexico. I am leaning that she is his girlfriend.

Re:from the article....

[Lord_Slepnir]

Would you beleive this guy without photographic evidence, is what you have to ask yourself

Re:from the article....

[Scrameustache]

pic of her in a bikini top

And she can solder too?

Boy...

Re:from the article....

[Zordak]

Boy...

No, I'd say she's definitely a girl.

Just pray...

[mod_parent_down]

that your kids don't take up baseball.

"Son, where are you going with that ball and glove?"

"Dad, I just want to go and--"

"GIMME THE DAMN BALL!"

DMX might work better, if you have multiple PCs

[anti-NAT]

Distributed Multihead X Project

"LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE"

[nusratt]

Look carefully at the expanded jpg of the windows over the fireplace in TFA, and it's obvious that they couldn't really be obscuring genuine windows looking out on "ugly neighbors".
There'd be no room for the chimney.
nyaah, nyaah, nyaaaaaaaaaaahhh!

Re:"LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE"

[xkenny13]

Look carefully at the expanded jpg of the windows over the fireplace in TFA, and it's obvious that they couldn't really be obscuring genuine windows looking out on "ugly neighbors".

Nowhere in the article does it say he is replacing genuine windows ... in fact, the pictures in Step 6 show that there are originally no windows on that wall at all.

Presumably, the "ugly neighbors" are visible outside the real windows ... so he keeps those shut/covered. Instead of having no windows at all, he built fake ones on the wall over the fireplace.

Re:"LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE"

[nusratt]

"Presumably, the "ugly neighbors" are visible outside the real windows"

"Vas you dere, Charlie?"

Video Card

[Merlinium]

There is a quad card that can do MPEG video on up to 4 monitors at a time. The card cost like 1500.00+ But at the last trade show I was at, Matrox had a Quad card being made that was half that price.

Another solution. 1 Video output total, going into a scaler or video splitter box , Google for Kramer or Extron (the only 2 vendors I can recall off the top of my head)

GL

Mplayer Options for Such Situations

[POLAX]

See the -zrcrop, and -xineramascreen flags for mplayer/mencoder i.e. "man mencoder" from the command-line

F the panels...more pics of Julie please 8-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice looking girl who knows her way around a soldering iron. Put me in, coach!

Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

>>> I had particularly ugly neighbors

> The neighbor's response: "I had particularly ugly neighbors too"

I wonder if either of them works for Sybase?

Cool

[ScrewMaster]

This makes me think of Arnold Scwarzenegger's kitchen in Total Recall. I really wanted one of those. I still do. I also wanted Sharon Stone but she wasn't available.

I remember reading some years ago that Bill Gates has virtual paintings all over his house, and that's neat, but I like what this guy has done even more.

some other links

[F2F]

not the first time that's done :)

what could be done with a few leftover laptops: LANL and Plan 9.

what could be done with a few leftover read-projection screens and a nice opengl MPI library rendering on all them simultaneously: the GUT...

Split the stream in linux!? This is so easy!

[flithm]

This is the easiest thing to do in the world in linux... you don't even need to split the stream up or cut up images or any of that...

Simply configure your X server for a multihead configuration -- Ie something like this (this is from my xorg.conf):

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "X.org Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
Screen 1 "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0"
EndSection

Of course you'd have many more Screens, but that's easy. Then in your "ServerFlags" section, simply turn Xinerama on:

Option "Xinerama" "on"

And there you go... now next time your run mplayer what you'll have to do is mplayer -fs -screenw [xres] -screenh [yres].

The reason for this is mplayer will default to going fullscreen on one of the heads, but if you explicitly give it geometry it'll do what you want.

There is one other minor problem I found when testing this out... mplayer appears to have a check built in that gives max resolution as 4096x4096. Since you said on your page that the total desktop resolution was only 3072x2048 it seems that'll work fine!

Even if you do go for higher res, you might be able to simply go through the mplayer code and comment out that check? (or who knows it could actually be there for a reason!?) You might also be able to send a message to the developers. I can't see anyone not wanting to help out a project this cool!

Best of luck!

Wait till MS hears about this.

[ptelligence]

You're gonna be the next Mike Rowe Soft.

Actually

[BizidyDizidy]

Appears to be the same guy:

Clicky

PC colorspace not sufficient for a virtual window

[0x0d0a]

Read my last journal entry. The PC colorspace is not sufficient to handle a virtual window.

Oh, the expense

[Inv8r Zim]

Didn't need to see this. I have been toying with the idea of upping my "geek quotient" because I'm so unbearably cool, and configuring four LCD panels with stills from Blade Runner flybys would pretty much put me over the edge.

Gstreamer + Xinerama + X

[schweini]

somebody else already mentioned using X with the Xinerana extension for this, but if you have any spare PCs lying around, you can throw Gstreamer into the mix, and build a gigantic video-wall, without the PCI-limitation.
here's the howto

the video-whale project

[croddy]

the video-whale project [gstreamer.freedesktop.org]

REWARD For Stolen Equipment

[Nautica]

The company I work for recently had the theft of 8 15 inch LCD monitors. If you have any information regarding this crime that leads to an arrest, we shall reward you $1000 dollars.

Re:REWARD For Stolen Equipment

[Anonymous Coward]

HA!

That's one of the better one's I've read!

Electrochromic Windows

[remy]

While not an active display, some posters are talking about electrochromic windows, which can be LCDs (though usually not). They are pretty expensive, easily $2,000+ each. I've been wanting them for my living room/home theater, but can't quite justify the $20k investment in windows for my $1,000 projector...

Some swankier clubs have them for bathroom doors which go from translucent (cloudy white) to transparent, as opposed to the 98%/0% transmissive black ones.

Just google for electrochromic.

But if he was a real geek

[geekoid]

he would have something besides a sunset.Well maybe a sunset, but not one from Earth!

Re:But if he was a real geek

[Eternauta3k]

triple sunset? or was it double?

How is that?

[reality-bytes]

500 times more stuffing about that what?

My current system has 1x AGP 3D Accelerated card and 2x PCI non-accelerated cards. The physical setup is 1x major (centre) screen and 2x sattelites (one each side).

I don't use Xinerama for this (hence I get the major screen with 3d acceleration).

It took about 10 minutes to configure with X.org (mainly because I got my left and right confused.)

Re:Ob simpsons

[RsG]

Grandpa: (with stake and mallet) We have to kill the boy!
Lisa: How did you know that Barts a vampire?
Grandpa: He's a vampire?! (drops stake/mallet) AHHHHH (runs away)

(later)

Lisa: You must drive this stake through his heart.
Homer: DIE YOU INHUMAN MONSTER!!!! (pounds stake into Burns)
Lisa: Uh, dad that's his crotch.

PCI Express (why?)

[sethstorm]

If it wasnt for the (illogical) skip from PCI->AGP but the one to PCI-X (and then to 2.0), there'd be plenty of systems out there with the I/O (read: server type boards with loads of PCI-X/PCI-X 133 slots). At 3-5 slots average, you'd have more trouble finding LCD's to use with them.

It's simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Just play "The Girl Next Door" in your new "window".

Its a relatively common thing in new upscale homes

[tgd]

My parents have an LCD window in their bathroom. Flip a switch and it goes in a blink of an eye from frosted to clear.

That was put in there five years ago, and I think its pretty common in high end homes these days.

Fresh air and sunshine

[syousef]

Tell me exactly how these systems allow you to replace the fresh air and sunshine? Turning your home into something less healthy than your office is not a clever plan. If you just want picture displays, you're after a virtual frame rather than a virtual window. If a view of what's going on outside is your cup of tea, a security system fits the bill better. Virtual "windows" just look tacky IMHO.

Sounds like...

[spacecadetglow]

someone's been watching back to the future..

Distopian

[haggar]

Just look this pic

Fake windows with a fake view, next to a FAKE PLANT.

When I see these things, I feel so lucky to live in Finland, surrounded by thousands of acres of forests and lakes, where I can easily meet with all sorts of wild animals doing what they do. Reminds you that there's some real life in this world still. Who knows how many natural resources were destroyed to make those LEDs and the electric and computing power to make it all work. The real thing is cheaper and looks better.

Re:Distopian

[arose]

And a fake cityscape.

Re:Distopian

[drouse]

Do they have humor up there in Finland, eh?

* It isn't like he ordered these new -- they were working units that had been discarded (i.e. he is recycling -- keeping stuff out of landfills).

* I don't think he obscured a real view -- from the pictures (and the fact that there is a fireplace on that wall) there weren't any windows on that wall.

* Not everyone can live amongst acres of forest -- imagine the suburban sprawl if that happened.

I'm kind of with you on the fake plant thing though, but I'm a bare white walls and no interior lifeforms kind of guy. :-)

Re:Distopian

[haggar]

Do they have humor up there in Finland, eh?
We import that from other countries; USA, UK, Canada. (I'm not entirely kidding)


* It isn't like he ordered these new -- they were working units that had been discarded
The production of these goods will require the same amount of resources, regardless of the price at which they were acquired, you'll probably agree with that, I hope. And the electricity to make them run, and the materials and goods used to wire them up, put them into frames, glue them etc. all required natural resources. The electrical energy, albeit small, is a constalntly running resource.

* I don't think he obscured a real view -- from the pictures (and the fact that there is a fireplace on that wall) there weren't any windows on that wall.
Good point, and taken. Not *the* most relevant argument against my post, perhaps.

* Not everyone can live amongst acres of forest -- imagine the suburban sprawl if that happened.
Of course, you are right about this. I don't even want to go there - we'd open a can of worms or, at least, a very interesting but long and complicated debate on a possibly fundamental issue for humanity.

On my budget I could not do this but

[thomasa]

perhaps I could possibly afford an LCD porthole.

I must say...

[tsch]

the telescope pointing at the fake windows was a really nice touch.

Apple cinema display?

[moosesocks]

Slightly off-topic, but the (partially assembled) LCD display under Step 1 is either an Apple Cinema Display or an Apple Studio Display. (With a transparent case -- to my knowledge, apple never made any monitors with a completely transparent bezel)

Interesting -- a possible source of his LCD Panels :-)

Re:Apple cinema display?

[Sociodemographic]

I was thinking the same thing, my school has a bunch of 15" and 17" older Apple Displays like that, and I think he removed the paint from the inside or something.

King Kong

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone should make him a big wallpaper of King Kong's eye peering in at him - that would be awesome!

Cool....

[ArtisteTerroriste]

This is very cool. Along the lines of Gibson's changing suit. Now, if I had one the size of a closet mirror, I could make my wife feel better about her self!

One thing to be careful of...

[Metasquares]

I just found out that LCDs are capable of burn-in (the hard way). If you plan on displaying a static image on the window for long periods of time, you might want to blank the screen every so often.

nVidia SLI / Dual PCI-E

[freaksta]

"So with multiple PCIE vid cards, any suggestions on how to split a full motion video stream in Linux?"

No, but with nVidia's new chipset (not yet release.. december/january) you can use DUAL (via SLI) AGP video cards. How about dual PCI-E 6800 Ultra's.. thats 4 DVI ports.. even if SLI specifically does not support using all four ports.. they have to make motherboards with DUAL PCI-X to support the SLI function.. and i'm sure that someone has some software (probably built into nvidia drivers) to use all four outputs. However this is extremely expensive.. but hey.. if you want video.. you can have all the video you want!!

Really Cheap Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I work nights. Tin Foil works really good.

Hoagy needs to move

[zenneth]

The creative person behind this project also had a similar problem with his neighborhood previously posted here on slashdot.

You can also click on the following link to his cityscape project.

I can't imagine what his neighbors must be like to cause such a tremendous undertaking.

Re:Hoagy needs to move

[hoagaboom]

Too true. The cityscape was built for the house we were in 2 years ago. Sadly, we don't have the ideal spot in this house for it. It's still nice to have outside the dining room when we play poker.

Answer on splitting video

[Anonymous Coward]

VLC
www.videolan.org

oops

[kronchev]

can't have multiple PCI-E cards without a special board. which is why I hate PCI-E standards...no ones going to allow more than 2 cards, if even. 16x slots are rare.

When acting...

[ChuckSchwab]

When acting, people always attempt to substitute what they perceive to be a more, for what they perceive to be a less, satisfactory state of affairs. In comtemplating different states of affairs people consider not only the absolute magnitude of the satisfaction they expect to derive, but also the certainty with which they will occur, discounting future satisfactions due to their inherent uncertainty.

Replace My Windows With LCD Panels?

[craXORjack]

I had particularly ugly neighbors and a lot of LCD panels laying around...

I would rather replace my neighbors with bikini clad beer spokesmodels. But since that'll never happen I guess I could build a virtual window and play my Girls Gone Wild video in it.

Re:This is totally stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said he was spending a bunch of money on it?

The site said he had access to unwanted bare 15" panels.

Change your Windows for LCD panels

[Cyclone_TBW]

Aslong as it doesn't crash then I am all for it. Sign me up :-)

Amature photographer ...

[LoudMusic]

This is a killer awesome way to display amature photography and geekdom in the home, or appartment. Though I would go with a different arrangement. I can see someone trying to approach the window to look at a different angle of the image. If all the pannels were together, possibly with narrower trimming, viewers would be less likely to figure it out the illusion as quickly.

4 channel of MPEG2 video at one time

[dkocic]

You can get 2 ReelTime-4 MPEG2 decoder cards in your PC and get 8 channels of video at a time. These cards are made by Visual Circuits http://www.visualcircuits.com/ and they are pretty good, I used them myself. That would solve your problem of having full motion video on 8 screens. Drivers are made only for Win 2K which is donwside, but overall it is very good product if you only need video streaming.

o..kay..

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, this is just sad. If I suddenly found 8 15" lcd panels in the basement I probably wouldn't say "Hmm.. these'll make mighty fine fake windows" rather make two of these myself.

Bill Gates

[panth0r]

Isn't that what Bill Gates has at home, you know that thing with Linux and pictures?

DUPE

[Anonymous Coward]

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/01/15/184 1206&tid=196&tid=126

To split up a full motion video stream...

[Anonymous Coward]

Say your stream is comming from /dev/video0 (or could be a file...

mkfifo fifos.are.cool

cat /dev/video0 > fifos.are.cool
cat fifos.are.cool | mplayer -FS -framedrop - > /dev/null 2>&1 &
cat fifos.are.cool | mplayer -FS -framedrop - > /dev/null 2>&1 &
# to send it over a network:
nc -l -p 7000 /dev/null 2>&1 &
# on the remote machine
nc videoserver 7000 | mplayer -FS -framedrop -

Variation. If your outputing from a DVD: (0-10 are tracks 0 thru 10. Adjust as appropriate)

mencoder dvd://0-10 -o fifos.are.cool -ovc copy -oac copy

Variation2. If you want lower bitrate and have enough power to encode from mpeg2 to mpeg4 in real time:

mencoder dvd://0-10 -o fifos.are.cool -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4

(libavcodec is better then Divx or Xvid. Faster and better quality at the same time)

Video-Whale

[Bimari]

I wonder if this will help!!??

Where do you get...

[Anonymous Coward]

LCD monitors like this.

Assuming you do not have an employer with spare LCD monitors you can have, where would you get such monitors without all frames and stuff, and how much do they cost. A quick google didn't come up with anything.

Re:Here's a suggestion, follow electrical codes.

[hoagaboom]

Heh, I'm not worried about the wires. I'm more concerned with the fact that there are now nice holes in the walls to feed oxygen to any fire that might start above my FIREPLACE.

working at nights?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I had particularly ugly neighbors and a lot of LCD panels laying around"

May I ask what you do for a living?

OT: Your sig. Re:You could always

[zsau]

Your sig, Label seen on Tomato Ketchup bottle: Allergy warning - may contain extract of Tomato, does not compare with a warning that there may be traces of nuts or peanuts on a bag of mixed nuts (incl. peanuts). It becomes a bit worrying, when there only may be nuts or peanuts in a bag of nuts and peanuts. I would certainly hope there were...

Re:Its a relatively common thing in new upscale ho

[microsopht]

Iam sorry i don get you. why should the bathroom windows get clear...shd some 1 be able to see thru whts happening nside the bath?

The most interresting part in this project...

[Anonymous Coward]

.. is Julie. Geesh, nobody else noticed? She's gorgeous and knows how to solder.

beautiful geek girls, i KNEW they exist

Do You have What it takes?

[microsopht]

Many seem to grouse that hes so lucky to hav 8 spare LCD panels { jus for info, i havent even got 1 lcd coz of its price }, and chicks etc.... But even if u had so many panels and other resources required, do u think its possible to do all those cable/vid card/n/w connxn...and all those things he did to make it work?

iam not underestimating you geeks, but seriously how many people eher have the knowledge here to put through somethin like that , given the resources?

What a geek.

[edunbar93]

Okay, he has a bunch of LCD screens "just lying around."

And yeah, he made some fake windows out of them so that he could have a country view in the middle of the city.

But what really takes the cake is that he has absolutely no skill with respect to interior decorating. Those windows are crooked! And the cables are sticking out! And for the love of Ghod, they look stupid and fake stuck to the wall right over the *fireplace*! Where the chimney is!

Only a true geek would make something that's supposed to look good, look bad.

Re:What a geek.

[hoagaboom]

Yep, it's bad. Especially the red leather couches and fake tree covering the AC unit in the corner. But the windows are plumb, sir! The camera lens just distorts things. :)

Re:What a geek.

[edunbar93]

Next you're going to tell me that the fireplace was photoshopped in there.

Whats the wall paper?

[microsopht]

You guys must hav noticed the Cute girl in the comp's wall paper [ the pic in STEP 1 - proof of concept].Where do i get that exact wall paper? that gal looks so sexy!!!!

Re:Whats the wall paper?

[MagusX]

I don't know the exact wallpaper, by the girl is DangerGirl. From a comic book or some such. Search around, you'll probably find tons of references.

Re:Whats the wall paper?

[earthstar]

Thanks dude! Could find similar images with google search. Is that comi so famous?
:-).Thanks.

Full motion video? Technically possible!

[rew]

Even if you have a 3000x2000 desktop, your average DVD decodes to 800x480. THAT is the resolution of the video-data that needs transporting to the video card. The video card should have accelleration to bit-blit that out to full-screen video.

The standard trick that is used is to tell the 3D chip that we're looking at a wall that has a texture and change the texture 50 times a second.

The cheapest solution..

[Anonymous Coward]

Goto art.com, by a poster, stick on the window..

Spend money on beer and strippers instead.. ;)

Not to mention it's 2D

[gilesjuk]

It's a 2D imagine that won't alter based on the angle you view the screen at.

This sort of thing is nice to add some atmosphere to a drab apartment, but it's always going to be just a simulation.

Re:Not to mention it's 2D

[CPM User]

Don't worry, future displays destroying even more of nature with even more power hungry processors will take care of that.

Someone had to say it...

[Anonymous Writer]

He's running Windows on his windows. :P

Why not just use a video splitter?

[NekoXP]

Forget "multiple graphics cards". Just use one, and get a video splitter. You
can buy $80 hardware that will portion a video signal (VGA) up into 2x2, 4x4
or 8x8 blocks ("video wall").

Then you don't need Linux whatsoever.

Neko

Ph334 meh h4x0rz 5k177z

[Anonymous Coward]

sometimes the simple things work best: just edit the source for that page full spectrum solutions and you can get your product at any price! - i wonder how long it would take before a human noticed the problem.. you never know, it might just work.

Why not just buy a big plasma screen?

[Anonymous Coward]

And build that into a sectioned window frame?

Lot less hassle.

Uh...

[drunkennewfiemidget]

Am I the only one who's slightly bothered by the poster saying he has "a bunch of LCD panels just lying around"? I'm having a hard time scrounging up the coin to buy ONE, much less enough to have an over-abundance of them just lying around.

I suggest that...

[emiste]

...the guy sell those LCD's and buy a real window for the money.

Posters

[Joao]

I saw this done over 20 years ago, but using posters rather than LCD screens. A friend of mine was living in a basement loft apartment here in NYC, so he placed some window frames over some beautiful landscape images of famous landmarks from around the world. It was quite cool, and much easier to do.

Need a hologram

[gr8_phk]

Unfortunately large Holograms are expensive, Generally not available in color, and not able to capture the depth required for an outdoor scene. All this could change in the next years if people work on it. For some state of the art:

http://www.laserreflections.com

They do have a large (4 panel) window arrangement in there somewhere. Oh, and not animated.

Funny Thing

[BlueTooth]

On the commute in to work this morning I was thinking about the possibility of having sky scrapers extend as far down as they do up. The problem is the same one I have in my office: no windows (which results in me being suprised at the weather every day when I step out of my climate controlled box).

If you were going to build a building without windows the best substitute, I decided, would be to build a sky box around the outside of the building. So you look out your window and see a sky cyc. The cyc could be generated by ellaborate lighting and projection to simulate the real weather, time of day, etc. or to transport the office dweller to a completely different setting.

Don'tcha Know...

[tarsi210]

...I always have 8 LCD panels just laying around. Right next to that stack of spare 120GB SATA HDs.

Re:Here's a suggestion, follow electrical codes.

[241comp]

If you don't believe that 12V can be dangerous and can lead to a fire, I suggest that you take your favorite wrench and drop it across the terminals of your car battery. Please do not hold onto the wrench while doing this and please ensure that the battery is located in a place such that if it were to explode it would not damage anything (including you). If your wrench is still intact when the fireworks are over, you may find two very neat holes melted in it. And if it melts a steel wrench, think of what it can do to all the dry timber in your wall.

Need to add depth perception!

[Anonymous Coward]

Add a webcam and some software to detect where you are in the room and change the images accordingly to give the images depth. That way they'll look like windows and not pictures.

Re:Ob simpsons

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

My uncle was a vampire. Noone believed me until I drove a wooden stake through his heart. It killed him.

Laptop LCD

[jlvd]

At work, we have quite a few old laptops that are no longer used. Would something like this be possible with them. Like pulling out LCD screens? Anything else that could be done with old LCDs out of laptops?

Bastard

[karniv0re]

I had [...] a lot of LCD panels laying around

WTF? I don't even have one in use. If having a bunch of LCDs laying around is a problem, ship them to me. I'll put them to good use!

Nobody asked???

[nytes]

Does it run Windows?

Real world

[hernyo]

holy shiite, i wanna live in the real world, not in an lcd-covered matrix-like house! i wanna see the sun, the _real_ sun, my freaking neighbours, the dirty street and so on. i want nature to control my life better than me to control nature.

--yeah, i know, my english sucks

Re:Its a relatively common thing in new upscale ho

[tgd]

View out, I suppose.

Sounds awfully familiar

[frog51]

Ah yes - The Light Of Other Days by Bob Shaw.

I, however, like the idea of having the playback speed slower than the input speed so the image steadily gets further out of sync.

Of course, there would be a need for ever increasing buffer space:-)

Re:Here's a suggestion, follow electrical codes.

[blueskies]

Nothing?

I don't think a battery has enough current to melt wood! Try your experiment with a wood wrench.

mod parent up - excellent story!

[Artifex]

It's been a while since I read it, and I'm glad to see it, again.

I've always considered this to be one of the most touching short stories in the genre, along with one about an automated house slowly falling apart years after a nuclear blast takes its family, and a few others. Unfortunately, I don't remember titles of short stories very well at all :\

Re:mod parent up - excellent story!

[Isbiten]

Yes, I feel so too. I've must have read it a couple of times now. And even though you know the end it's so touching...

Re:Here's a suggestion, follow electrical codes.

[241comp]

Hello? The idea isn't that you can short-circuit electricity with wood. Heck, 120V won't do that (usually). The idea is that if you were to have a short-circuit inside of the wall (through metal or other conductive substances), the sparks and heat generated could ignite wood pretty quickly. You're slow, huh?

Re:Here's a suggestion, follow electrical codes.

[blueskies]

Oh, golly. I guess I am really slow. And to think i had just told all my mechanic friends to not use metal or wood wrenches because of how dangerous they could be around bateries. But now i know they just need to make sure they don't put metal wrenches in their walls.

coupling

[Flamesplash]

Same here, I've been wanting to do this for many years, though I knew I didn't know enough about any of it to actually do it myself, so I've been giving the idea out to anyone who seemed likely to be able to do it.

My twist was this though, use it as a means for long distance couples or even just people you care about to keep in touch in a different way. Part of the setup in my system would also include a camera system at one of your windows. Maybe a camera in each corner looking out. Then someone with another virtual window could 'dial' up your view. Imagine if you were seperated from your family for a while, but you could still have a view into the back yard of your house. And your spouse could have a view into the world you see outside your normal window.