Project Megapixels

Almost · Post by **Almost** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 7:53 am

Wouldn't Walmart be a better start then.....

sputnik · Post by **sputnik** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 8:09 am

The time has come.

Here is the image I've chosen:

I've chosen this image for a number of reasons:

1) It's a painting of my friend Cyfar.
2) Of all the people I know, he represents the spirit of Burning Man the best (participation, radical self-reliance, radical self expression, community, etc)
3) He isn't coming to the playa this year, so I want to bring him out in this way.
4) My friend Toon painted it. ( http://www.myspace.com/l_sid )
5) The painting is relatively simple in terms of overall color scheme, thus we can probably do this with 3 colors (red, black and yellow)
6) The painting can scale up to as many pixels as we can get by starting in the lower left hand corner and expanding towards the flames on the upper right.

I hope that you're as excited about this image as I am.

We have almost 1000 pixels spoken for right now. That's one tenth of the way to the goal. We're at about the size of the recent image Maxim put out near Las Vegas: http://cdn.maximonline.com/maximusa/index.html but that photo was taken by a plane and used much smaller pixels. We need to be 10 times bigger!

More soon. Thanks for your support.

Rockdad · Post by **Rockdad** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 11:23 am

Great picture sput seems really workable!

Question couldn't Cotton sheets work for standard pixels size? maybe everyone find queen or king size bed sheets/blankets on sale walwart or something. they then could be put to use at home or even maybe donated?

nothing wrong with rectangle pixels...

And red or black sheets are sexy!

sputnik · Post by **sputnik** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 11:26 am

Maybe. Depends on the colors. But I think sheets will cost a lot more than raw fabric.

capjbadger · Post by **capjbadger** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 1:12 pm

Cool pic. But I can see the headlines now...

News Flash: Devil-worshiping freaks in NV desert construct icon of fire demon big enough to be seen from space"

Film at 11...

BTW, is it me, or is there a face in the flames? Was that on purpose or am I just seeing things?

thisisthatwhichis · Post by **thisisthatwhichis** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 1:17 pm

Nice, I like it Sput......

You've got my name on the list right? I can bring some pixels.....

sputnik · Post by **sputnik** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 1:18 pm

capjbadger wrote:Cool pic. But I can see the headlines now...

News Flash: Devil-worshiping freaks in NV desert construct icon of fire demon big enough to be seen from space"

Film at 11...

BTW, is it me, or is there a face in the flames? Was that on purpose or am I just seeing things?

Fine by me. I hope there are such headlines. Might be interesting.

I don't see any faces in the flames, but there might be one, I'm not the artist.

sputnik · Post by **sputnik** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 1:21 pm

thisisthatwhichis wrote:Nice, I like it Sput......

You've got my name on the list right? I can bring some pixels.....

Maybe. I'd need to know what name you registered with to be sure.

Annekerhymeswithmonica · Post by **Annekerhymeswithmonica** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 9:17 am

Hey guys! I'm really excited about this interactive project and would love to participate with a chunk of fabric.
I don't have a lot of NRG to put into other aspects and not much $$ cause we're self-employed....but I really really like the idea of making a huge image that can be viewed from the sky

And made by many people working together.
I know, I know : Dream Big.
But also keep it manageable.
I favour just regular tent pegs to pin cloth to playa. After all, everybody is coming from a different place...
In my own costumes I'm thinking to incorporate THE SCREAM , by whatsisname---that would be lots of swirls of different colours, and could be used in this project....
For Hope --- maybe a flame? Or happy face?
Just thinking out loud. . . ..

)
Anneke

sputnik · Post by **sputnik** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 9:20 am

Annekerhymeswithmonica wrote:Hey guys! I'm really excited about this interactive project and would love to participate with a chunk of fabric.
Anneke

Thanks for the thoughts. Be sure to go to the project website and register so we can email you more info as the time approaches.

I think we have a real chance of making something about this big (70x70 pixels)

Lysergic · Post by **Lysergic** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 3:43 am

I think it would look better without the background personally and especially if being viewed from space as a small picture....

I know how you are pixelizing the pix but I'm unable to convert to just 7 colors, what did you do?

sputnik · Post by **sputnik** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 6:04 am

I like that Lysergic.

I didn't do the conversion, a friend of mine did. Something in photoshop.

mars · Post by **mars** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 7:17 am

I like it better with the black background, too. Plus, it's way easier.

Neon Mars

sputnik · Post by **sputnik** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 7:20 am

Yes, it's better with the black background, but the playa colored background makes for an even easier image.

mars · Post by **mars** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 7:57 am

Playa color? I don't think I have that one in my Crayola Box.

Jus' kiddin....playa color, yes.....the best!

//////

Post by **mdmf007** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 8:57 am

Well at night its dark so the playa will be a black backgound!!! problem solved.

Dont forget that half pixels on the diagonal will dramitically increase resolution. more work but i think it is worth it.

later

sputnik · Post by **sputnik** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 10:18 am

mdmf007 wrote: Dont forget that half pixels on the diagonal will dramitically increase resolution. more work but i think it is worth it.

later

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The satellite I'm hoping for has a maximum resolution of .6m x .6m. However, it's likely, based on where it'll be located in the sky, that the actual resolution will be more on the order of 1m x 1m. Anything smaller than that will blur together.

Almost · Post by **Almost** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 4:09 pm

Playa background = Significantly less pixels

sputnik · Post by **sputnik** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 6:24 pm

Yes. It looks like we'll be able to make the pic with just over 5000 pixels instead of the 10,000 originally spec'd. In fact, if we start in the lower left and work our way to the upper right we can probably get away with as few as 2000 and then everything over that is extra fire.

I was thinking tonight that it might be interesting to try to get a bunch of fire breathers together one night to do something like last year.

LeChatNoir · Post by **LeChatNoir** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 6:37 pm

sputnik wrote:Yes. It looks like we'll be able to make the pic with just over 5000 pixels instead of the 10,000 originally spec'd.

WhooHoo!!!

sputnik · Post by **sputnik** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 6:41 pm

Here is what the latest version looks like. It needs a bit more work, but this is almost it.

mars · Post by **mars** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 7:57 pm

Dont forget that half pixels on the diagonal will dramitically increase resolution. more work but i think it is worth it.

We can fold the fabric onsite to make half pixels. Yes?

sputnik · Post by **sputnik** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 7:59 pm

What's with the half pixels? I don't get it.

Post by **mdmf007** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 10:04 pm

You can use Half pixels - or triangles if you wish to call them that to smooth out pixelated edges. It just helps to define the edge and make it look less choppy. That is all.

Take one pixel, and cut it in half diagonally - now you have half pixels.

later

Post by **mdmf007** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 10:05 pm

You can use Half pixels - or triangles if you wish to call them that to smooth out pixelated edges. It just helps to define the edge and make it look less choppy. That is all.

Take one pixel, and cut it in half diagonally - now you have half pixels.

later

sputnik · Post by **sputnik** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 5:43 am

OK, that's what I realized later. Put that image on your screen and then step back until it's smaller than your thumb held out at arm's length. Do you think it'll really matter? I don't.

Dork · Post by **Dork** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 10:05 am

Half pixels would make it look better up close but not necessarily when viewed from the satellite.

Overall, getting as many pixels as possible is probably your best bet. Do you have plans for scaling up or down the image to match the number of tiles that actually show up?

How do you plan to color-match when people are buying from different sources? Or, do you think it won't matter too much as long as they're close?

I do plan on helping out, I just want to make sure I know what my plans are for the event before I commit to anything.

Rockdad · Post by **Rockdad** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 10:22 am

I think your going to need a hot air ballon to map it!

Ok a little to the left now...ok nudge pixel 334b in a little closer...who's got a pink one...o look a bunch of gold one's arrived lets start over

sputnik · Post by **sputnik** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 10:25 am

Dork wrote: Overall, getting as many pixels as possible is probably your best bet. Do you have plans for scaling up or down the image to match the number of tiles that actually show up?

The only scaling plan is for growing the image based on the number of pixels committed to. That will be from the lower left to upper right. Anything missing on playa will just be missing.

Dork wrote: How do you plan to color-match when people are buying from different sources? Or, do you think it won't matter too much as long as they're close?

I'm not too worried about color matching. At the minimum I'll put up a web page with printable samples. These will vary by printer, I know. Oh well.

A suggestion was made to use specific paint chips from places like home depot. That seemed like a good idea. I actually found a site that will tell you what color paint most closely matches your RGB values

http://www.easyrgb.com/matching.php#Result

The problem is that the colors are so deep in this image that 'normal' paints that you can buy at home depot don't have a cooresponding color sample.

Dork wrote: I do plan on helping out, I just want to make sure I know what my plans are for the event before I commit to anything.

Cool.

regionalchaos · Post by **regionalchaos** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 10:53 am

Maybe we should assign the body / head / hand / torch pixels to people that have committed to large chunks, or that we know to be very committed to the project. Basically, participants that we can hopefully assume will be more 'reliable' and show up with the pixels. Then a lot of the random we'll bring 3 or 5 or 1 or what not, can be the fire pixels, and we can scale it as we get them...

Project Megapixels

Would you participate?

IMAGE SELECTED

hey