Slashdot Mirror
MIT Student Gets Artistic With LED Art
Gibbs-Duhem writes "An MIT graduate student has up a page showcasing a standout art project. He's designed custom LED light fixtures which are seven times brighter than the closest similar commercial models, and include colors which can't be reproduced by a normal RGB cluster (including two ridiculously bright UV LEDs). The result: some beautiful mixed media artwork. The author's goal is to eventually publish a guide to make getting into creating such artwork more accessible to the general public. The site includes lots of great photos and a movie of the art in action. It also has in depth descriptions of the theory involved in this relatively new form of art, an explanation of how the paints were chosen, and an in depth technical discussion of how such lights are designed with schematics and board layouts for those who might wish to build their own lights."
I haven't read the whole article, but anything having to do with LED technology is interesting to me. It's interesting, though, that the author doesn't seem to understand color mixing in pigment vs. light.
He says-
"You mix red paint and green light, you get what appears to be yellow light."
That's not true. If you mix red LIGHT and green light, you get what looks like yellow light. If you shine green light on red paint you get a ugly dark mess. The red paint doesn't reflect the green light very well- the reason it's red is because it reflects the red portion of the spectrum. So, when you light it with green, the light that's reflected off the red is not going to be very intense, it certainly won't be yellow.
Also important is the fact that green is a primary color in light, while yellow is a primary color in pigment. If you shine green light on yellow paint, you'll actually reflect a lot of green, and if you shine yellow light on green paint it'll also (you guessed it) reflect lots of green.
I think it's interesting that he's finding out how the horrible color rendition capabilities of LED's can be used to one's advantage, but I don't know if he really understands all the theory involved...
I got quite bad eye-burn from a UV spotlight (was standing about 2 metres from it for about 2 hours): not a nice experience.
Didn't notice any effect until about the following evening (thought something was in my eye). I woke in the middle of that night with stabbing pains in my eyes. Next day, daylight hurt my eyes. I couldn't even look at the flame of a candle. Thankfully, eye ointment soothed it and the problem eased the next day (disappeared over the next two or three).
Doctor couldn't figure out what had happned to me - I only figured it out (after the visit) cos the weather was cold and relief of cold breeze on my face made me realise I had got sunburnt!