Samson found a tutorial on Audio VGA Hack and asked me to check it out. It looked pretty cool and I found a couple VGA cables sitting at home. Time to get busy...
First I cut up one of the 2 VGA cables. The color of the wires seems completely different than the tutorial. There were 15 pins plus the outer metal part on the VGA port; however, there were 18 different wires inside my cables, with some sharing the same colors. I had to use a multimeter and labeled each cable accordingly. I supposed different manufacturers may have used different color schemes over the year. 1. I had connected the cable as the tutorial described and my computer did not recognize the CRT monitor. I checked all the connections with a multimeter to verify signals come though each of them. All the wires were then soldered and reconnected, except the first 3 pins (R/G/B signals) and an extension from pin 5 (ground) was made.
2. Cut up an audio cable with a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack. Tip (left channel) is the red wire, ring (right channel) is the white wire and sleeve (ground/sheild) is the black wire. I also bought a 2-way headphone jack splitter: one connected to Arduino, the other to a computer speaker to monitor the sound output.
3. Connected a normal VGA cable to computer and set the display in mirror mode. Plug in the "hacked" VGA cable.
4. Connect Red (or White) audio wire to Analog In 1 of Arduino; connect Black audio wire to Analog In 0. Connect Pin 1, 2 & 3 of the VGA cable to the Digital 4, 5 & 6 of Arduino. Attach Arduino with USB, load the code supplied by the tutorial...
Thanks to the help of Assistant Professor Dr. Oscar Au; he explained the whole process in great details. This hack only work for monitor with horizontal sync signals, thus the horizontal strips, i.e. CRT monitor. To further modify the setup...
The higher the input volume, more color and strips.
In order to show more green strips, connect Pin 2 (Green) of the VGA cable to a lower number of the Digital Out of Audrino; for example, Digital 1 would have a higher frequency to show green than connected with Digital 5. Alternatively, connect Pin 3 (Blue) of the VGA cable to a Digital 1 for more blue. See photo below.
The height of the strips can be increased by adding delay to the script. Delay value of 5 seemed too think already. Modified code below.
4. Interactive installation for Fiat concept store
5. iWarning an interactive installation for smokers
This search yielded mostly different and far more diversified results than last year. May be the search engine has been improved, it became more accurate and efficient. There may also be a rapidly growing number of people searching and uploading new information regarding the topic.
While browsing through the videos, I stumbled one about DIA (Detroit Institute of Arts). I had lived in Michigan for quite a few years, Detroit was only an hour drive. Detroit Institute of Arts Interactive Installations
This is a blog about researches on "Interactivity" & "Installation".
This was an ongoing independent study project in Winter 2009 with Associate Professor Steve FORE.
It has become a Thesis Project in Fall 09 & Winter 10, working with Assistant Professor Samson YOUNG.
I have already completed the MFA program, still would like to continue to look in this area. Update irregularly and comments are welcomed.
This Saturday, NYC Resistor hosts "Art, Design, and the Arduino: a lineage." Works include a lineage of variations, modifications and relations to the Arduino microcontroller by the following artists:
