Giant "Inkjet Printer" 131
mustrum_ridcully writes "For all you who don't like the cost of inkjet printers how about this printer that uses spray paint (courtesy of bbc news ). Ok it's not exactly what you'd call compact, but perfect for the lazy or wannabe graffiti artist." Having just finished doing a bunch of painting in my house, I'd like to have one of those machines drop down over my house, and paint via program - maybe I can use as GBA SP as the control device.
Can it run linux? (Score:3, Funny)
Make it smaller (Score:2)
Uses (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally I would use it for when I'm building furniture (desks, tables, etc.) to give it a once over with some spray wood treatment or color.
The article is kind of light on details of sales and such though. Looks more like a hack job. But hey maybe it'll be the first printer to have linux drivers FIRST!
Re:Uses (Score:2)
Uhh.. you're forgetting the obvious:
Painting the sides of train cars.
Re:Uses (Score:2)
When you RTFA, remember to R T F A... (Score:5, Informative)
I doubt that commercial uses were the designers' primary motives, given that the machine was the winning entry in an art contest. The clue was in the "light on details" article:
"The machine has already won an award at the 2003 Machinista media art festival."
Also, the article gives a strong indication that the designers don't seem to be commercial developers:
"Researcher Jürg Lehni came up with the idea for Hektor when thinking about novel ways for an artist to turn computer-drawn images into something more concrete.
He wanted to combine the precision of computer-generated images with the woolier outlines produced by spray paint.
Working with friend and electronic engineering student Uli Franke, Mr Lehni created Hektor. The machine suspends a spray paint using two toothed belts that feed through a pair of motors."
Again, the focus seems to be on art, not on commercial applications.
Additionally, you seem to have missed the links to the Hektor [hektor.ch], Machinista [machinista.ru] and the Zurich Kunsthaus [kunsthaus.ch] gallery, where another Hektor-implemented piece of art can be found.
Cunningly - some would say as cunningly as a fox, what used to be professor of cunning at OxfordUniversity, who is now head of the United Nations department of cunning planning* - these were hidden on the very same page, under the deceptive title "Related Internet Links".
Is it me, or even when they RTFA do people forget to RTFA?
(* You can't use the word cunning without quoting Blackadder.)
Re:When you RTFA, remember to R T F A... (Score:2)
And yeah, re the "profit motive" I'm guessing from the choice of demo picture of **Che Guevara** that commercial considerations weren't first on t
Give me another bowl of your corn flakes.. (Score:2)
First of all, the article itself is barely 2 pages in length. I did read it. I did realize what they did and why they did it.
Second, what makes you think the guys wouldn't want to sell something like this as a kit? Is it too hard to believe that they would? Would it be so hard for the people writing the article to say: They just built it to build it.
Third, I'm glad you feel special that you can browse around
FU
Re:Give me another bowl of your corn flakes.. (Score:2)
Hmmm. Perhaps you're not familiar with the BBC News site. All the articles are of that length. They are news articles, not technical reviews. Perhaps you've got the site confused with ArsTechnica or something.
Second, what makes you think the guys wouldn't want to sell something like this as a kit? Is it too hard to believe that they would? Would it be so hard for the people writin
Re:Uses (Score:1)
You'd have a problem using this device on a car - it's only for painting in 2D. Cars are 3D - just overlaying a flat image won't work. But if you added a third axis of movement and a ratational axis, ie have a X-track on the ceiling so the rig can move to any location in the horizontal plane, combined with up & down and spinning round, then you could paint on just about anything.
Obviously yo
Re:Uses (Score:2)
It's not that hard to build. We use a very similar device here where I work. (smaller scale, of course). There's 2 ways to do it. One, use a stepper motor. This is the better, more ex
Standard Engineering (Score:2)
I imagine in a few years the guys that came up with this will (after working with some of the top minds at Xerox PARC and IBM, and maybe a couple million dollars in VC) have this 'ink spraying thingy' small enough to fit on your desk. Envision hav
Looks like... (Score:5, Interesting)
The artistic benefit of this new device may not be long lived if it does become commonplace, it would be like making paintings using a plotter.
Re:Looks like... (Score:1)
Re:Looks like... and with a working link. tsk. (Score:1)
Re:Looks like... (Score:1)
Beyond that, I admire the simlicity of the construction. Two controlled strings and gravity is all these guys need to build a highly versatile Plotter. Compare that to commercial products!
Re:Looks like... (Score:2)
Vertical plotters (even large scale & using spray paint) aren't new. I built one for a student engineering project, >15 years ago, and it wasn't new then (1m square, accurate to a couple of mm, spray paint, colour, etc.).
A couple of bits of string, a couple of motors and a print head is basically all any plotter is - the hard (expensive) bit is getting accurate "strings" and motors and frame.
They've thrown away the frame by req
Re:Looks like... (Score:2)
Plotters drag a pen across the paper so perfect lines are drawn. That's why they're used extensively for CAD. You'll never see a jaggie line on a plotter.
Printers use dots and patterns to recreate an image. Sometimes they SMASH a print head through a ink soaked cloth, or they MELT a combination of iron oxide and plastic to the paper, or they SQUIRT ink. That's why you see a lot more pictures created with printers.
Re:Looks like... (Score:1)
As you say, a plotter draws lines, rather than dots (vector vs. raster) - and I think this is the critical difference. It doesn't matter that it is using a spray, it is still spraying lines (some of the images on the site are half-tone type images but they still look to be made up of lines). Of course you can draw a raster image with a vector plotter
Re:Looks like... (Score:1)
Re:Looks like... (Score:1)
Plotter not printer (Score:4, Informative)
Some Images are Instantly Familiar (Score:3, Funny)
Who the hell is that?
Re:Some Images are Instantly Familiar (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Some Images are Instantly Familiar (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Some Images are Instantly Familiar (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Some Images are Instantly Familiar (Score:2)
Deny people the means of protesting or implementing change without violence
Re:Some Images are Instantly Familiar (Score:1)
Re:Some Images are Instantly Familiar (Score:2)
But more relevant . . . (Score:3, Informative)
But more relevant to the "instantly familiar" part is that when the New Left radicals started to idolize him, this one image of his face began to appear over and over on posters, t-shirts, magazine covers, everywhere, all variations of this one picture of him. It became a ubiquitous bit of pop-art for several years, and for probably 10 years or so, just about anybody in the U.S. could have seen a rendition of that one image, and known it was Che.
And it showed up i
Re:But more relevant . . . (Score:1)
Very strange....
Interesting history of that photo (Score:1)
Alberto Korda, the photographer who took the picture of Che Guevara that became an icon of left-wing revolutionaries and students worldwide, has died aged 72. Korda, whose real name was Alberto Diaz Gutierrez, suffered a heart attack while in Paris for an exhibition of his works. It's a great loss for Cuban culture. He was one of the top chroniclers of the revolution He worked for the Cuban newspaper Revolucion after Fidel Castro's forces took power in 1959 - although
Re:Some Images are Instantly Familiar (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Some Images are Instantly Familiar (Score:1)
Re:Some Images are Instantly Familiar (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Some Images are Instantly Familiar (Score:2)
Not just at markets. His image is even being used by banks [antipub.be].
Re:Some Images are Instantly Familiar (Score:1)
Re:Some Images are Instantly Familiar (Score:1)
Waat huet daat elo mat enger bank ze dinn.
Re:Some Images are Instantly Familiar (Score:2)
As alles an hierem PDF erklärt...
Re:Some Images are Instantly Familiar (Score:1)
Re:Some Images are Instantly Familiar (Score:2)
Bon, en huet nët d'PDF Extension. De Konqueror op der Schaff verdaut daat gudd, awer nët deen heiheem... Am Zweifelsfall, einfach mat wget roflueden, renamen, an dann vun Hand opmaachen.
Re:Some Images are Instantly Familiar (Score:1)
Villmools messi!
Greiss aus daat klengt Letzebuerg ;-)
This would be really sweet mounted on a car bumper (Score:4, Funny)
Or, combine it with random movement printing [slashdot.org], and you could paint the Mona Lisa in a parking lot while doing doughnuts.
Re:This would be really sweet mounted on a car bum (Score:4, Interesting)
You'd lay out some text or imagess in a graphics program, get out on the highway, and lay down road graffitti. "SPEED TRAP AHEAD" spread down I-85N for 200 feet.
I'm actually pretty surprised no one has built one yet. Although I'm sure the local laws have some idiotic provision against writing on highways with non-toxic temporary paint.
Re:This would be really sweet mounted on a car bum (Score:1)
A while back, IBM had a campaign where they were painting Tux and hearts on the curbs in several cities. As I can remember, the city council of San Francisco was not amused ... so there most likely and unfortunately seem to be laws against putting paint on the roads. This does not detract from the fact that this sounds like a cool i
Re:This would be really sweet mounted on a car bum (Score:1)
Parking lots (advertising) and driveways (yard art) might be a better application than streets and highways for your bumber matrix printer.
Put a pivot point near one end of it and you could swivel it vertically to paint along a
Re:This would be really sweet mounted on a car bum (Score:1)
Re:This would be really sweet mounted on a car bum (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This would be really sweet mounted on a car bum (Score:1)
I was thinking that it could be used to paint directions on roads without putting lanes out of commision. For example, it could spray the words like "STOP AHEAD", "To W-50", "EXIT ONLY", etc. One problem is that it would have to dry fast. Perhaps a heat-blower truck can be just behind it.
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Wow (Score:1, Funny)
Disclaimer: you alone are responsible for the consequences of your actions.
Prior Art (Score:2)
plain food coloring won't work, you need to use edible ink [kopykake.com] on your paper backed frosting sheet [kopykake.com]
Re:Prior Art (Score:1)
Mind you, given how little ink there actually is in a printout, I would be very surprised if there was any chemical you could use that would be dangerous in the amounts you would be likely to ingest over the course of a slice of birthday cake. Methinks some experiments are in order.
A few days later in an underground car park:
Hello, little boy. Wo
Re:Wow (Score:1)
Robot? (Score:5, Interesting)
A similar thing would be to fit a spray can onto this wall climbing robot [irobot.com].
Surprising that nobody has automated wall painting yet, then we wouldnt need to have these plain colored walls anymore. All of us could have our favorite frescos. Just get me a large res. image of the cistine chapel roof!!
Oh just great... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Oh just great... (Score:1)
Deja Vu (Score:1)
Demolition Man. (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe they can shrink it down in a few years
Re:Demolition Man. (Score:1)
but wonder how you use those damn seashells.
Re:Demolition Man. (Score:2)
Re:Demolition Man. (Score:1)
Seriously, I doubt even the people who made the movie knew what you were supposed to do with them. Otherwise a Google search would have turned up something better.
I have something just as good... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I have something just as good... (Score:1)
Site of Hector (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.hektor.ch/
you can watch a cool movie of Hector in action, aswell as some technical information.
You shout 'Fire!' in theaters as well, I suppose.. (Score:3, Informative)
Take it to SF... (Score:4, Funny)
Video of hektor in action (Score:3, Informative)
Ink costs (Score:3, Funny)
Hektor (Score:2, Informative)
With apologies to those running this project, its website is at http://www.hektor.ch [hektor.ch]. (Someone say Last Rites for the web server, please.) There's some neat footage of Hektor in action. Unfortunate, though, that it's so slow; the video of it drawing some peanuts seems to go on forever, and most of the time you can't tell what it's doing. It's certainly interesting, but more performance art than anything else.
Possible use (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Possible use (Score:2)
Re:Possible use (Score:2)
Work is too boring today, but at least I didn't moderate this overrated.
Re:Possible use (Score:1)
But for those that were unaware- it is a brilliant, er... that is, at least marginally luminant, Monty Python [stone-dead.asn.au] reference.
Right now, write it a hundred times!
Re:Possible use (Score:2)
Re:Possible use (Score:2)
Excellent :) (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Excellent :) (Score:1)
First you have to super-size your wanker to match
now all we need... (Score:1, Funny)
bah - that think is puny!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Now this is a giant ink jet printer.
Re:bah - that think is puny!! (Score:1)
bah - that think IS puny!! (Score:2)
Hah! Their cost of consumables (Score:1, Funny)
Just what the gangs need! (Score:2)
Hoever, it being computer based, that implies that they have to be able to read and follow instructions, so maybe it's not going to lead to an explosion of mass-produced logos and cryptoc messages except in the upscale meighbporhoods where the graffitti comes from bored rich kids.
Kinda cool, nothing new (Score:2)
Go google for large scale printers, they exist. You get like 50 DPI, but for a billboard, that is plenty.
Re:Kinda cool, nothing new (Score:2)
What for? (Score:2)
So we can mass-create really large advertisements? Great. Just what we need. More noise amid the signals. And we wonder why people miss traffic/road signs, get into accidents, get lost, turn into obsessive consumers.
And what about artisan workmanship. Nothing is crafted from hand anymore is it?
overheard in SF subway (Score:3, Funny)
'Bout Time... (Score:2)
Official Site (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.hektor.ch/ [hektor.ch]
Mook! (Score:2)
not news? (Score:2)
When programmed you make the truck go forward and it will write the message you programmed in... great for marking the streets in riots !
Already been done, years ago, only for real (Score:3, Informative)
Pixation came out with a -real- printer that can paint on walls, buildings, etc. using compressed air and any paint that you can put through an air paint sprayer. House paint, oil paint, anything.
And it has been out for many years.
http://www.pixation.com/ [pixation.com]
Standard installation is 16 by 10 feet! It has 5 paint heads so you have black, white, cyan, magenta, and yellow. It is much cheaper than a wide format inkjet printer, and the ink costs -way- less than champagne!
OK, my birthday is coming up, who's going to pass 'round the office and get me one? ;')
More Printer News (Score:4, Interesting)
Check out Charles Babbages printer [bbc.co.uk] on the same site as the other article. Hopefully THIS printer won't have to worry about the cost of refills.
20 Years old? (Score:1)
SIW
Ink Magnum revisited (Score:2)
Ha! A self-referential joke! I'll just go lie down and die now - there's no way I can sink any lower.
Well, they Print Billboards, don't they? (Score:1)
I've been told that some of the large-format printing devices in use are essentially RGB raster graphic devices that have 3 paintball guns in a mount that scans across the surface in a grid pattern. The size of the paintballs is governed by the current pixel of the bitmap. Obviously, three nozzles each connect via hose to a separate reservoir of
something that inspired me once a time (Score:1)
it was a glorious idea, a glass door printing inkjet
the idea being, it would have an effective print area of about 4X5 inches, with the ability to do a dot a little out of that range in the corners, you hold the printer up to a glass door, have it draw the 4 dots, and then continue to hold it while it fills in the 4X5 inch section with ink. When that panel was done, you move the printer accordingly, adjusting the posiion til two of the dots of the co