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.
1952年,巴克敏斯特·富勒(譯註:美國發明家) 提出了"虛擬地球"的大膽概念 那是個直徑200呎的測地球體 並將其懸掛在紐約的東河上,能看到聯合國大廈的位置 這的確很大膽,他也深信 藉由這個球體所反映出的 全球議題、趨勢以及數據 能對握有決定權的聯合國產生影響 在45年後的今日 我們仍然需要這種清晰的觀點 然而,現代科技日新月異
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.
我們已不需使用上百萬顆燈泡去創造一個球體 我們可以用LED燈 LED燈有體積小、便宜、耐久、效率高的優點 最重要的是,LED燈的轉速更快 以它的速度,搭配上今天的高性能微控制器 讓我們只用64顆LED燈 就能模擬出一萬七千顆LED燈的效果 其原理是利用眼睛的視覺暫留現象來達到效果 它每分鐘轉動1700圈,即每秒28圈 赤道那邊的速度會高達時速60英里 這裡面有四個微控制器 每當球體旋轉 通過後方的基座時 它會接收到一個位置訊號 藉由這個訊號,球體內的微控制器 就能推斷出整個球體在旋轉時的位置 進而隨心所欲地產生各種圖像和影像
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.
但這只是起始階段 除了研發更高解析度的球體之外 我的父親和我正在申請一項新設計的專利 一個運用相同原理製造3D圖像的技術 只是它以兩個軌道來旋轉LED燈 如各位所見,這是個直徑11吋的電路板 這些區塊代表LED燈 當這個圓盤跟著整個基座轉動時 就會產生一個可自由操控的光圈 沒什麼特別,這只是個螺旋槳時鐘罷了 你也可以在車上裝一個 比較新奇的是,當這個圓盤本身也在旋轉時 這個光圈就會變成一顆"光球" 所以我們能夠利用微控制器 再加上256顆LED燈,製造出3D球體
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.
這個裝置尚在研發中 預計五月問世,但我們作了一個簡單的示範 讓大家看看LED燈如何變成一顆光球 現在我們就來看一下影片 但請記住,它還沒裝上控制器 而且只用了4顆LED燈 大概是成品的百分之1.5而已 那麼就來看看吧 現在只有基座在旋轉,以產生光圈 現在圓盤也開始旋轉了 漸漸變成一顆光球 這是利用相機曝光捕捉到的畫面 但不是很有效
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.
這個裝置將在五月份與大家見面 並且在春季互動電信展上公開展出 就在紐約的格林威治村 我強烈推薦各位去參加,因為那真的很棒 會有上百名學生帶著他們的傑作到場展出 這個儀器當然也不會缺席 它將在 Sierra Simulcast 大廳展出 直到展覽結束 所以,我誠摯地邀請大家 有空過來走走看看 很榮幸能來這裡演講,謝謝各位
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