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What is a Wixel?
According to Blendid, Wixels are wireless pixels that exist in physical space. They are small light objects of which the colour can be controlled wirelessly. When arranged in a group you get a Wixel cloud. The result is a beautiful and dynamic light sculpture. What does all this have to do with Blender?
It's simple, Blender was used along with Python and openFrameworks to develop control software that takes into account the spatial coordinates of the individual Wixels.
Take a look at the videos below. But if you can I recommend viewing them in all their HD glory directly at Vimeo. And make sure to check out Blendid for other interesting projects they are working on. Blendid is an interaction design collective consisting of David Kousemaker and Tim Olden. Looks like they are an innovative pair.
Wixel Cloud from Blendid on Vimeo.
Wixel Cloud Sketch from Blendid on Vimeo.
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Beautiful! simply beautiful…
Man, that is frickin' cool! I want to build one myself!
nice.
Reminds me of another installation, where the balls on strings move (but without color changing): http://createdigitalmotion.com/2008/07/07/kinetic-inspiration-sculpture-at-bmw-museum-by-artcom/
It seems like real!!
Great job!
Jiuck. I can assure you that it is real. They just use blender to design/test/controll… the "wixels" are actual objects.
Oh for a house worth putting them in!
And great for exhibition, or other large, spaces; light clouds instead of direction signs; ooh, trippy in the chillout room…
We're actually working on 'Swarm' an interactive installation with 500 Wixels now, should be ready in September. Been great getting help from the blender community (people like Macouno, Ideasman42 and Kiemdoder really moving us forward)
Awesome.
One effect I'd be interested in seeing is if you can set a wixels colour based on the geometry colliding with it in blender. Could be cool when animated.
That's beautiful, well done!
Lovely to watch and must be a pleasure to visit. nice work!
The videos made be hungry! Grapes anyone? xD
would be interesting to see in person. pretty neat. I like how each wixel can do swipe fades in their luminosity.
I'm curious as to how Blender fits in?
Why not use something like Processing or VVVV?
These are really fun. I was wondering if they are also for sale and how much they cost. I imagine you would need quite a few for a display.
@ Elam; We used Blender because it already has all the tools build in that are really handy for working in 3D environments. Sure we could have gone for processing or done everything in OpenFrameworks, but Blender already has a timeline, 3D objects that are easy to control and such. We figured we wouldn't need to build all that ourselves.
"Wixels are wireless pixels"
So how come I can see wires?
Music? Does anybody know who is singing there? Great stuff!!!!
Björn
So how come I can see wires?
Response: Because no one said they could fly? :P I guess they only hold them up but the controls are wireless. I bet you could cut them down and roll them on the floor.
hmm… they could be, theoretically, wireless.. you'd hold them up using helium, keep them together using magnets.. and you'd just need something so they don't get too close together
i want it – although i'm sure you'll need to stock up on spare ligh bulbs