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The idea
Mirrors have been round for hundreds of years, and their main goal is to indicate a practical illustration of what’s in entrance of them. However Nemecle had the thought to create a mirror that shows no matter is being mirrored in an especially low decision of simply 10 by 25 pixels, which he refers to because the “Dangerous Mirror.” In very high-level phrases, the mirror would encompass a digital camera, a processor, and a few technique of displaying the picture in a big format- concerning the dimension of a human.
Required {hardware}
This venture makes use of a Raspberry Pi as its foremost laptop as a consequence of its comparatively small dimension, ample processing means, and USB/wi-fi connectivity for distant entry and plugging in a webcam. Related to this have been 5 strips of WS2801 individually addressable LEDs that would signify every pixel inside the scaled-down image. Energy was offered to the system by a pretty big 5V/25A energy provide to be able to accommodate the utmost present draw of 15A with additional overhead for future expansions. Lastly, Nemecle determined to assemble 250 “water bomb” origami figures to behave as mild diffusers that gave the mirror a cool, irregular look.
Capturing pictures
To seize no matter may be in entrance of the mirror, a regular webcam was plugged in and a small Python script was written that captures every body with OpenCV. Nonetheless, there was a small downside: the order of pixel colours was incorrect, because the pixel contained information in BGR format whereas the LEDs wanted it in RGB, so he created a small perform that maps between the 2.
Displaying a mirrored image
For the ultimate step of this venture, Nemecle added some extra code to his script that built-in RGB LED output. It begins by establishing the LED strip with direct reminiscence entry to be able to free the processor from having to clock out information on the output pin straight. Then within an infinite loop, a brand new body is learn from the webcam, the RGB information is transformed, and eventually, the brand new information will get positioned into the LED strip’s buffer and despatched for show to the matrix.
To learn extra about this dangerous mirror venture, you possibly can learn Nemecle’s weblog submit right here.
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