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Fun With Transparent Screen Backgrounds
herberts writes "Looks like the amusement factor of 'transparent' screen background is getting bigger and bigger. The french Mac fan site Mac Bidouille opened up a dedicated part of their web site where fans can post shots of their transparent backgrounds." Other great transparent background shots can be found at Flickr.
This should take about ten seconds
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Some people have entirely too much time on their hands.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Would be a fun way to freak out the uninformed and techincally challanged.
I reject your reality and substitute my own.
But also very transient- move the computer, or just look at it from another angle, and the effect is destroyed.
And it has to be said: These people have way too much time on their hands!
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
I for one can see right through them.
"I think everyone is an agnostic but just doesn't know" - Frazz
For a CRT could you draw the electron gun and circuits.
Some people have entirely too much time on their hands.
Actually, this guy almost has his hands on the time.
AhahaHAHAHAHahahahaha I am so, so sorry.
.... They take a picture, put it as their backround, and then put the computer where the picture was taken. You seriously didn't figure that out?
This just in:
Microsoft has announced that they will be building technology for Transparent Desktops into their next-generation operating-system, Longhorn. Microsoft representatives report that this technology involves cutting the back out of the monitor to allow the image behind it to show through. When asked whether this would impede the monitor's ability to display images, Microsoft replied that this was an issue that will be addressed in SP1.
It looks like these are all staged. They look pretty cool but I'd be a damn site more impressed if if could be done "live" with a webcam behind the monitor... :-)
I downloaded one of the pictures and put it on my desktop, and it totally didn't look transparent at all.
Lame. And it's probably smaller than a Nomad.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Which is the reason why most of these are laptops or TFT Screens.
Much more painful to pick up CRT and take a picture. I know I don't want to move my 19" monster anywhere...
What they need is a built-in webcam like Sony's Vaio TR3A, a flippable camera in the top centre of the monitor, and do a full screen live-feed.
Then you'll be able to move the laptop to anywhere and the screen will still look transparent.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
I did it on my linux machine too! It's nice and transparent, although I suck at perspective.
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
You posted a friggin' IMAGE GALLERY on the FRONT PAGE of SLASHDOT??
Whaddaya wanna do, KILL 'EM??
I think that's how most were done, but it looks like a few may ghave been "done" by taking a picture, putting the monitor in place and putting a solid color on the background (with icons and such on top of that) and then taking a picture of that. The second picture was then merged with the first in Photoshop or a similar application by effects that mimic cromakey. The picture is only a picture, the actual view never existed.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
This, the Apple Easter Egg post, and the PSP post, signify a typical weekend of stories around here. Sigh.
Before the corporate buyout, Slashdot would have posted cool stories all the time no matter the day. But since OSTG took over, they save the good stories for weekdays just because they know they'll get more adviews on a Monday. Blah!
These look extremely good when you set them up and then snap the result BUT they do not look any good at all or convincing when you try it in real life. I know because I'm so sad I tried it on Friday when this story first came out on gizmodo.com or engadget.com (always get those mixed up). If you really want to have a go remember:
1) You really need to use a laptop because shifting a CRT monitor or even an LCD panel is tough, flicking it down is easy.
2) Try to match the resolution of the camera to the screen size otherwise you'll have to stretch it to get it to fit right. Even then it won't look right because it only looks right from one position.
3) Get a app that lets you tint and alter the gamma of the photos. My digital camera's white balance just didn't create the same yucky yellow tint that my office strip lights have. Couldn't match it at all.
4) Admit that honestly, if what's behind your PC monitor is a dusty cube wall it's probably not worth looking at anyway, and no, you won't fool anyone.
Here is my quick attempt. Some of the ones out there are really neat, especially the one has three screens overlapping on flickr. I thought it would be fun to do one of these, and then GIMP something into the image. Have my PowerBook looking out the window, and then GIMP a picture of the Eiffel Tower off in the distance. I'm too lazy, but someone else could do it :)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Or possibly a webcam/digital camera right in the back of the monitor that's hooked up to provide the backround updated realtime? I think they probably sell lenses that zoom out far enough to get that same effect. Someone will probably correct me if I'm wrong.
"For years, I struggled with reality... but I'm happy to say I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
Great - now I can stare some more at my cubical wall all day long.
Next, someone will figure out a way to tattoo that image onto the inside of my eyelids.
Yeah, its defintly cool but in a productive perspective this has to be the most useless thing I have seen. BUT.
Being a eye-candy-whore my self, I must agree this is really cool. At first, I saw the laptop and though they actually disassembled the LCD it self and the lights.
I have yet to see someone who will really take apart the whole LCD installation to where its truely tranparent. I would do it without a doubt if I wasnt some poor engineering student who doesnt know what the fuck.
"What's next, taking a screenshot of the desktop and putting that as the background as a prank?"
Been there, done that, made my co-worker cry in frustration because the computer was "locked" even after several reboots.
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
A few pointers I figured out along the way:
- It's very important to keep the camera angle the same. If you've got a tripod, this is a good time to use it.
- Shooting perpendicular to the display (i.e. not at any sort of angle) is the simplest way of making things line up properly, since you don't have to stretch the backgrounds for perspective or whatever. (Some of the shots in the gallery are at angles and are very impressive in terms of difficulty.)
- Backgrounds with lots of stuff in them look cooler than "gosh, the wall shows behind the computer" in most cases. Elements that extend from behind the screen, or wrap around to the side or front can also be fun.
Next time I'm really bored, I'll try to work up something that has a mirror in it...Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
On the flicr site every page states that it's not a photoshop trick. And if you don't believe that look at the images closely, you can see that the colour is slightly off because of the LCDs.
Many folks are claiming the easy routes:
A) Take a picture, and move the screen where the picture was.
The problem with this is perspective. lenses are not flat scans of the world, and you'll see (in fact in some of the shots you do see) some perspective distortion, especially with stuff like vertical lines.
B)Take picture with and without screen and photochop it.
Actually, the best non-cheating way to do this is:
C)
1) Set your camera up on a tripod, at the scene where you want your monitor.
2) Remove monitor.
3) Take picture.
4) replace montor.
5) Take another picture.
up to here this is the same as method B), the photochopping. But instead of pasting the background (And cheating), you crop the first photo to the dimensions of the monitor in the second photo.
6) Set the cropped picture as background.
7) Take the money shot.
8) Wait for the pulitzer folks to get back to you.
Any idiot can merge two layers together in Photoshop. The whole point of these images is the work it takes to get the image really on the screen to match as closely as possible to the background...
Find a few that make you suspcious, and I'm sure a lot of people will point out why they were not done in PS.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
People taking photo of their computer screens reminds me of this project.
Infinite Cat Project
Some people have way to much time on their hands!
But this gives me an idea: why doesn't somebody photoshop a picture of himself, with a transparent teletubby-style screen on his belly. Oh, and the camera would be positioned rather high, looking down....
this article is 5 days too early
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It looks like a modern version of trompe l'oeil, without all the pesky work involved in learning how to paint.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
It'd be cool if the transparency showed the inside of the monitor!
haha, Slashdot readers think alike. However, I took a screenshot of the desktop with and error message, photoshopped the error message to something really scary, set that image as the desktop. Man was my coworker tripping. The dumb tech support, too =)
The site is slashdotted. Courtesy of yours truly, here's a photo of a transparent background, reposted here:
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"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Hell, it's not even like in the UK we had a 2am last night. My clock went straight from 1.59am GMT to 3am BST
-- Sorry, I can't think of anything funny to say here.
Back a few years, IBM sold a laptop where you could detach the back cover of the lid, exposing the screen so that it could be placed on an overhead projector. I worked with Ted Selker who invented it, so I had a homemade prototype version. When I presented at conferences and everyone else struggled with F7 and video formats, I just whipped the back off my Thinkpad and put it on top of the overhead projector. I don't think anyone listened to my talk because they were all craning their necks to see what I had done with the display. All of the questions afterward were about where to buy such a nifty device rather than anything about my talk!
The removable back was also useful for working outdoors. You could put a white reflective surface behind the screen and backlight with sunlight, making it usable no matter how bright it was.
Apparently he does it so people think he's working. Fooled me.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
It *kind of* worked, not that well though. On the basis that it was hacked up in a day for a low-budget TV programme, it was pretty good.
I wouldn't say the US military had the monopoly on developing cool stuff. Can they even afford to, these days?
They'll probably implement the transparent background technology before PNG compatibility in IE.
Meanwhile, by the time they get it working, the OS community will have 16 different implementations of the TDT (Transparent DeskTop) standard, and SVG will have been extended to include it.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
It was built before overhead projectors were commonly used for showing the words of songs, so they didn't leave anywhere for a screen. Covering the back wall is a big wooden cross -- we used to project words onto the wall on one side of this, but it was cramped and could only be seen from one side.
But recently, someone had a bright idea. We now have a video projector, and a large screen which descends to cover the cross and surrounding design -- when it's not being used for words, they project a picture of what's underneath it. It's not perfect (the alignment and colour are very slightly out), but it's a good solution which allows everyone to see the words without getting rid of the focal point.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
Not a laptop but a standalone transparent flat panel.
My own transparent screens.
sgis ddo ekil t'nod i
The Flickr link in the story only links to one person's photoset (no disrespect to that person, w00kie). The Transparent Screens group pool is much more interesting as it aggregates everyones transparent screen photos.
Wow. Are the people modding up parent the same people who find "How-To" papers on making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to be useful information?
Exactly. It would take less than five minutes to fake one of these. And I'd do it myself as a demo except that it's lame...
-Put camera on tripod
-Take picture without computer in frame
-Put computer in place with the desktop set to a solid green color
-Load Photoshop and layer the images together with the "computer in place" image on top
-Cut out the screen's solid green so the image underneath shows through
-Adjust the image behind to be slightly offset and mess up the coloring a bit to fool people who fall for stuff like that
-Flatten and enjoy
For the especially dedicated, you could take a screengrab of the mac desktop and load that rather than removing the green color so you get a better image.
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
You couln't achieve a nice effect like this in color using LCDs, A mono display might work to a degree though, similar to several alarmclocks which use a transparent display.
Though you never know what technologys around the corner and how it will work, I think LEP/OLEDs achieve significantly higher density than LCDs and if there power output increased and the clusters of 3 colors had enough gap between each cluster to let light though something might be workable.
For what it's worth, you can get it to very nearly work if you have a distant background, then the error would be minimal.
If you know the distance to the object, you can do a distortion effect (I think a "punch" effect would be right, squeeze the center out towards the sides). That'd only work if the objects stays at a fairly fixed distance, if you have a glass window to the hallway you should be able to see people walking by just as if it was transparent.
If you wanted to make a really advanced variety, you could measure the distance by e.g. IR pulses or something and dynamicly apply the effect with different settings. That should work until you get as close as the camera can see (the camera must see what you would've seen in the upper left corner).
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I just opened my CRT, removed my monitor screen, tube and back panel. :O
;)
It looks dark through...
Now what?
j/k
"haha, Slashdot readers think alike. However, I took a screenshot of the desktop with and error message, photoshopped the error message to something really scary, set that image as the desktop. Man was my coworker tripping. The dumb tech support, too =)"
Heh. You fools using desktop wallpaper to mess with other people, what a waste of time. I useta have a wallpaper image that was a screen-grab of my daily work apps. Boss comes by? *click* Desktop button! (Admittedly, though, I attempted to highlight my wallpaper a few times.)
Work avoidance > messin with people.
"Derp de derp."
..the reason that we haven't yet come up with a cure for AIDS or cancer is that all of our scientific minds are engaged in activities that far more pressing, such as transparent backgrounds. Just joking, this sh*t's important.
This kind of reminds me of that HP photo/camera commercial, where that fellow snags frames out of the air, capturing screen shots from live motion in the foreground and background with each one he grabs.
I had this virtual-pet thingy once which i got for free somewhere and when i removed the LCD it looked just like regular glass.
Is there anything preventing one from relocating the hardware at the back of an LCD monitor for the same effect?
Am I the only geek that expected to see backgrounds that showed the insides of the monitors? Hardware is much more exciting than the wall or shelves behind the computer. I can think of some good joke possibilities too along the lines of things or statements that would be funny or shocking if they had been hidden inside your monitor.
Boss's PA had a monitor that attached with seperate R G and B BNC cables.
I swapped around the Red and Blue cables and carefully adjusted the colour settings in Windows 98 to swap all the R & B components around so all menus, etc looked normal.
Of course, the moment she started browsing websites all the images loaded wrong.
Took ages for them to figure out what was wrong - video driver reinstalls etc.
Got a written warning for that one, but was worth it!
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
Just wait until OLED's are scaled up to a larger size and you will be able to have transparent backgrounds without the need for a digital camera.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
The process is soooo much easier than you just described.
- Position the camera (preferably using a tripod) so that the orthoganal line extending from the center of the screen intersects the lens of the camera.
- Zoom in so that the laptop screen fills the picture frame.
- Fold the laptop screen down.
- Take a picture.
- Open the laptop screen back up.
- Set that picture as your desktop background.
- Zoom out.
- Take another picture.
No photo editing required.i forget
It's a little disconcerting to see that no one has posted that Belgian surrealistic artist Rene Magritte did these type of images (painted canvas displaying background) back in the 1920s.
Don't you guys ever look through those big books of surrealistic art in bookstores and libraries? Much of the imagery that we consider 'weird' and 'futuristic' now was first conceived and painted back in the 1920s and 30s. Guys like Salvadore Dali, Yves Tanguy, Joan ('Ho-ahn') Miro, Max Ernst, and Rene Magritte created the modern fantasy landscape look.
Their work was a step beyond the inflamed, blood-soaked, passionate, and sex-obsessed imagery of the 19th century Decadent Romanticists like Gustave Moreau, Klimt, and DeVille. It was this over-stimulated buffoonery led to the disaster of the Great War. Surrealism was an attempt to invoke the primal mental forces that lay beneath duty, religion, and even consciousness.
Since you'all have broadband you can find this images and paintings easily on the web. They are definitely worth the trouble to find and view them.
Here it is. includes pictures
-- Why keep us waiting? We are not made of time.
My first try is available at Macbidouille and I wanted to say how these things are TRULY done, not some wild guessing/oversimplification/cheesy head-on way out.
Depending on your patience level, this technique works for as many levels of transparency as you'd like to fake.
--Great Designers, Great Design.
Many of those Picasso pretenders produced complete garbage that was all but indistinguishable from the scrawlings of a 5-year old. Some of them were probably complete frauds who couldn't draw to save their life, but used 'surrealism' as an excuse to produce garbage with a high price tag. Others would have been otherwise good artists, but didn't understand what Picasso was doing, and so ended up with pale imitations of his work.
There were some who could understand what Picasso was doing, and how he was doing it (more or less). These people were able to properly follow in the style and produce good surrealist art. I get a sense that many of them got swallowed up in a larger pool of garbage.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.