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IndustryArena Forum > CAD Software > Uncategorised CAD Discussion > Program to generate drill pattern for simulated night sky for LED ceiling
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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Posts
    2134

    Program to generate drill pattern for simulated night sky for LED ceiling

    Hi All,

    As part of my lifelong renovations, I would like to make a series of interconnecting 12.7mm MDF panels for a ceiling in a home theatre (6m x 3.6M coverage made of 0.6m x 3.6m panels) simulating the night sky with white LED's. I'm looking for a solution to intelligently autogenerate semi-random dots or circles (or whatever as a drill object point), but allow some basic criteria such as minimum spacing between each object, cluster density, number per panel, etc. Sort of a randomly arranged grid in essence.

    I've already tried using skymap programs to convert a scene to bitmap and then mark each object as a drill point, but due to density and placement issues being a real sky scene it doesn't really suit, and given i'm looking at around 2000-3000 LED's in various string configurations, I don't want to manually place dots. I'm not concerned at accurately replicating a realistic night sky, just simulate it for effects.

    No doubt people will bring it up, but as it will ultimately be micro controlled for dimming and effects patterns, and some degree of future proofing, fibre optics is not an option!

    Any ideas how I can generate the drill patterns/objects?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Posts
    423
    Although I have no answers for you, I think your idea is cool.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Posts
    2141
    I have been mulling this over since I first ran across your post earlier today.

    My current thinking is that starting with a skymap program might not be a bad idea at all, but you would want to filter or otherwise modify the output through custom software. That way, you could browse through sections of the sky until you found patterns that you found attractive, and then exclude or include drilling points based on the metadata accompanying the stars.

    For example, you could select stars by magnitude, excluding the dimmer ones, as a way of thinning out the drill pattern while still keeping recognizable constellations.

    Once you winnow down the universe of stars to a manageable set, then you can play games by stretching or compressing the resultant group of points to fit within your panels, allowing for margins so that you don't end up drilling right next to a seam.

    Of course, if you simply wanted to do random point assignments, then you could do custom programming to do that as well. You might want to specify some "rules" (for example, minimum and maximum spacing between points, density or total number of points within the area of a panel, margins near the seams, and the like.

    You could probably use a fairly straightforward scripting language such as Visual Basic or Python to do the programming.

    Your program could create output as a bitmap, or a series of plotter commands, or a vector list, or pretty much any format that you wanted. You could even create output in Gcode for a CNC drilling machine to work on.

    It's certainly an interesting question and project...

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Posts
    2337
    Using a program like GIMP or Photoshop. You could then use the paint brush in spray mode.
    Export it out and then into Inkscape and convert the raster into a vector drawing. From that point on turning it into gcode for drill shouldn't be too bad.

    I reckon a LED for each hole would be too bright and maybe expensive.

    Maybe you can bunch 10 lenghts of fishing line together infront of a LED and place the other ends through your star holes.
    Or have all the stars going to a super bright LED and have a pattern wheel in front so as to make the stars flicker.


    Edit : If you want I can do the Gimp and inkscape stuff for you. Though its better if you do. Both of these programs are free too.
    Being outside the square !!!

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
    Posts
    2337
    Ive done some further testing and its looking promising.
    I have attached the working file for a .6 x 3.6 board.
    The picture you see below is a small section of one sheet.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails test2.jpg  
    Attached Files Attached Files
    Being outside the square !!!

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Posts
    2134
    Hi all,

    Thanks for the good ideas, I'll check out gimp and inkscape, my eyes did glaze over at the thought of programming though :-)

    I did try numerous settings with several star and constellation simulation programs but so far they all have issues including mainly the density which renders the output useless. One constellation dump came close but converting the bitmap to vectors and then creating a drill pattern from the result got a little ugly. I'm hoping to be able to create a pattern that can be repeated for each of the ten panels width and length wise without looking like a grid.

    Fibre's out of the ball-park for me, as depending on the aesthetics of a sample panel, and the actual light output and spread, i'm guessing I'll probably want to create around 16 sets of 8 parallel strings of 16 LED's in series (around 48VDC total fed from constant current source), either using IDC connectors, possibly soldering using CAT5, or maybe even buying pre-wired LED's as they are very, very cheap. As each series string is only around 20mA, the total consumption is very low, especially as the LED's will be pulsed, and only around 50-75% would be on at any one time.

    The reason for the strings is I will hook them up to a microcontroller for different pre-set lighting configurations, and especially a dynamic twinkling effect. Varying the hole depth will also allow different degrees of light output for parts of the strings without any customisation required electrically or software wise.

    While the fibre ones can look good, I'm limited with ceiling space, and I don't like the protruding cables or fiddly fixing. CNC makes the drilling and channeling of the LED's, cable runs and connectors a breeze. I can also drop the sheets edges along the two 6m walls to give a curved ceiling, which will intensify the LED's effect.

    I'm a fair way off finishing the room reno anyway yet so i'm still in the info, and deciding, gathering stage for the ceiling, and although this is a huge degree of work it doesn't phase me as many of the projects I tackle are quite large, but I also really can't see any comparable or configurable effect from anything but LED's?

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