A few years ago, the MEME VJ’s built a hologram, using an inverted pyramid made of Plexiglas. Using four video cameras, we recorded a dancer from four angles, then used that video to create a four sided hologram. The projected worked well, and the pyramid ended up in one of the VJ’s basements.
The Fortune Teller was a revival project for the hologram tech. I had wanted to make the project more interactive, and decided it was a good opportunity to learn Unity, and try out EL wire.
Software
I went with C# since that’s what everyone was using at PEG JAM, and thus, what I could get help with. Uniduino is a great library for handling all the serial communications between Unity and Arudino. There are tutorials for coding your own, but I wanted to focus on getting a working prototype so I could start testing. I had made my models in Maya before the jam started, so I could focus on just development.
Hardware
In order to reduce the number of things I would have to build, I went with a EL Escudo Dos shield instead of designing my own circuit for the EL Wire.
The pyramid from the past hologram program was placed on top of a larger container for the projector, computer, and electronics. Notice the lack of any kind of heat control system. I’m sure the heat from the projector won’t be a problem (Fun Fact: Projectors will shut off when they get too hot to protect their internal components from being damaged.)
The other failure of this design was a tray to access the computer, projector, and electronics that sit at the bottom of the container. As it is setup now, three walls of the fortune teller are put together, the electronics and projector are setup, the mirror is very particularly leaned to reflect the light upward, then the fourth wall is attached and the top pyramid piece is put on top. So if anything falls out of place during this process, the whole unit needs to be opened up. This serviceability issue is something I will have to make sure to keep in mind for future projects.
