The Tech

So, how do we plan on creating this super-duper living painting experience?   Our basic tech setup will include:

-Arduino - the reigning champion of open source I/O processing, an Arduino Mega equipped with long range IR sensors will act as our user interface.

-Unity3D – We’re going with a 3d game engine to render all of our graphics with a brush-stroke-like custom shader.  Unity will take the output from the Arduino and use it to trigger transitions from winter to summer, fire animations, and correspond the painting’s lighting to the real time of day outside.

-Projectors – We want this painting to be visible at noon from across the street.  That means we’ll need a super bright light source.  We’re hoping that two 4,200 lumen projectors will do the trick on even the clearest of February afternoons.

-RearProjection Screen – We want the painting to be as close to viewers as possible, so we’re experimenting with different rear projection adhesive films that we can attach to our storefront’s windows.

-A Computer – No magic lanterns or gear-based analytical engines here.  We haven’t decided to go Mac or PC, but we’ll need a computer to hold the show together and also to connect to the internet so we can monitor the installation from afar.