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1952年,Buckminster Fuller提出一個很大膽的建議—做個「地球透鏡」,那是一個直徑200英尺的測地球體,吊在紐約的東河上,能將聯合國盡收眼底。這當然是個很棒的想法。他覺得這能確切反映資訊,通過全球的資料和趨勢的動態畫面,以及球體上反映的其他地球資訊,可以有力地影響其判斷。45年後的今天,我們當然還很需要這種清晰和觀察,而我們現在有更先進的技術。
今天不需要一百萬個燈泡來做球體顯示器,我們用LED,體積更小、更便宜、更耐用、更有效。最重要的是,更快。這個速度結合今天高效能的微控制器,讓我們可以用這個模擬超過17000個LED的效果僅僅用64個LED就可以。這依靠視覺的持續現象達成。當這個環每分鐘轉1700次,那就是每秒28次。赤道速度實際是每小時60英里,其上有四個微控制器,這個環每轉一次,當經過顯示器後部時都會錄取位置信號。這樣上面的微控制器可以推算出環在旋轉中每個時刻的位置,並顯示隨機點陣圖圖像和動態畫面。
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以下為系統擷取之英文原文
In 1952, Buckminster Fuller presented a 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.
Today we don't need one million lightbulbs 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 allowed 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.
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但這僅僅是開始,除了這個顯示器的更高解像版本以外,我和我爸研究了一個新設計,正在申請專利。那是一個利用同樣現象的全體積顯示器,以LED繞著兩條軸旋轉所製造。你們可以看到,這是一個直徑11英寸的電路板,這些板上裝了LED。你可以看到當圓盤繞著軸轉時將產生可以控制的圓盤狀光,這沒有什麼特別,螺旋電子鐘就是這樣,你買的車輪框也是這樣。但特別的是,當我們把圓盤繞軸轉動,光從圓盤狀變成球狀,我們可以用微控制器來控制,並僅用256個LED來造一個全體積的三維顯示器。
這個還在做,五月完工,我們組了個小模型,顯示出從點到球的幾何轉化。我給大家帶了一支短片。記住,這不是用電控制的,只用了四個LED,這僅是五月最終成果的1.5%而已。看看,可以看到它只繞著垂直的軸轉,生成圓形,之後另一根軸加入,就混成一個立體。這裏因為攝像機的快門速度不夠,看起來稍為沒有那麼明顯。這在五月能完工,將在互動電信春季展中展出,地點在紐約格林威治村,向公眾開放。歡迎大家去看,很棒的展覽,展出數百名學生發明者的絕妙成果。這個樣品當然也會在Sierra聯播廳完整展出,一直從現在到秀展結束為止。很高興今天為大家演講,大家可以過來仔細看看。很榮幸來到這裏,謝謝。
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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 11-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, now 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.
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.
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's 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.