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

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

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?

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.

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...

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

[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.

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?

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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 :(

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. :)

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

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: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.

the video-whale project

[croddy]

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

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.....

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 :-)

King Kong

[Anonymous Coward]

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