In 1962, Buckminster Fuller presented the particularly audacious proposal for the Geoscope. It was a 200-foot diameter geodesic sphere to be suspended over the East River in New York City, in full view of the United Nations. It was a big idea, for sure, and it was one that he felt could truly inform and deeply affect the decision making of this body through animations of global data, trends and other information regarding the globe, on this sphere. And today, 45 years later, we clearly have no less need for this kind of clarity and perspective, but what we do have is improved technology.
Buckminster Fuller于1952年 提出一个有关潜望镜的大胆提议。 一个直径有200尺的测地球体 并将其悬挂在纽约市东河,同时可以看到联合国大楼全景。 的确很大胆,他认为这个设计可以 通过球体的动态数据与、影像 以及全球问题 以提醒作为持有决定权的联合国 45年后的今天, 我们仍需要这种透彻的见解, 同时我们还具有飞速进步的科技。
Today we don't need one million light bulbs to create a spherical display. We can use LEDs. LEDs are smaller, they're cheaper, they're longer lasting, they're more efficient. Most importantly for this, they're faster. And this speed, combined with today's high-performance micro-controllers, allows us to actually simulate, in this piece, over 17,000 LEDs -- using just 64. And the way this happens is through the phenomenon of persistence of vision. But as this ring rotates at about 1,700 rpm -- that's 28 times per second. The equator's speed is actually about 60 miles per hour. There are four on-board micro-controllers that, each time this ring rotates it, as it passes the rear of the display, it picks up a position signal. And from that, the on-board micro-controllers can extrapolate the position of the ring at all points around the revolution and display arbitrary bitmap images and animations.
今天我们已不需上万个灯泡来照亮球体。 我们已经有发光二极管了。 发光二极管小而便宜,还很耐用,以及节能。 最重要的是,发光二极管很快。 以它们的速度,加上今天的高性能微星控制器 让我们能够用64块二极发光管模拟 17000块二极发光管。 这是利用了视觉停留现象。 但在球体每分旋转高达1700圈,也就是每秒28圈时。 赤道时速也就60英里每小时。 球体有4个内置微星控制器 当球体每旋转 至屏幕的后方时 它会接收到一个位置信号 从而引导微星控制器 推断球体在整个旋转中的位置 再显示推断的位图图像及影像。
But this is really just the beginning. In addition to higher resolution versions of this display, my father and I are working on a new patent-pending design for a fully volumetric display using the same phenomenon. It achieves this by rotating LEDs about two axes. So as you can see here, this is a, eleven-inch diameter circuit board. These blocks represent LEDs. And so you could see that as this disc rotates about this axis, it will create a disc of light that we can control. That's nothing new: that's a propeller clock; that's the rims that you can buy for your car. But what is new is that, when we rotate this disc about this axis, this disc of light actually becomes a sphere of light. And so we can control that with micro-controllers and create a fully volumetric, three-dimensional display with just 256 LEDs.
这只是开始 除了高分辨率显示以外, 我父亲和我正在争取一项新设计注册专利, 一个运用相同原理来测定体积的技术。 这是通过在两个轨道旋转二极发光管来实现的。 正如你所看到,这是一个直径11寸的线路板。 这些方块代表二极发光管。 这些圆圈围绕这个中心旋转, 它形成的光环是可控的。 这没什么新鲜的,这就是螺旋桨时钟。 你的车可能会用到这个远程信息管理系统。 新鲜的是,当圆圈围绕中心旋转时 这样光圈实际上可变成光球。 我们可以用微星控制器操控 仅用256块二极发光管就组成测量体积的三维显示。
Now this piece is currently in process -- due out in May -- but what we've done is we've put together a small demo, just to show the geometric translation of points into a sphere. I've got a little video to show you, but keep in mind that this is with no electronic control, and this is also with only four LEDs. This is actually only about 1.5 percent of what the final display will be in May. So, take a look. And here you can see it's rotating about the vertical axis only, creating circles. And then, as the other axis kicks in, those actually blur into a volume. And the shutter speed of the camera actually makes it slightly less effective in this case.
这个现在还在研制中-- 5月份就会问世,为此我们进行了一个小型展示会, 以展示几何是如何融入到球体中。 这儿还有个视频, 不过这个没有电子控制, 而且只有4块二极发光管。 这只是我们5月展示的1.5%。 瞧瞧吧。 这个现在只是围绕垂直轴旋转,形成环形。 再加入其他轴线, 这些都融入一个体积内。 和高速摄像机 不过不是很高效。
But this piece is due out in May. It'll be on display at the Interactive Telecommunications Spring Show in Greenwich Village in New York City -- that's open to the public, definitely invite you all to come and attend -- it's a fantastic show. There are hundreds of student innovators with fantastic projects. This piece, actually, will be on display down in the Sierra Simulcast Lounge in the breaks between now and the end of the show. So I'd love to talk to you all, and invite you to come down and take a closer look. It's an honor to be here. Thanks very much.
这个5月份面世。 会在春季互动电信展会上展出, 是在纽约格林威治村举行。 我会邀请大家的--这个展览很棒。 会展上有上百个学生发明家,他们有绝妙的设计。 这个会被展出 于Sierra Simulcast大厅。 直到展览结束。 很荣幸向大家介绍,我也很乐意邀请大家 来亲眼看看。 今天能登台很荣幸,非常感谢。
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