Building a Mini Vegas-Sphere

[@hacksmith]

Las Vegas sphere for ants. Great build!

[@CarlBugeja]

Thanks James! (Big fan of your work!)

[@desicdoggy4034]

Whoa hacksmith

[@Spoon_Of_Wisdom]

Hello hacksmith, can I have a used screwdriver?

[@IconicKBX]

hello there

[@worgle123]

SICK!! I was the number 2k like!!!!

[@CopenhagenMusik]

I love how you mentioned the price & cost of such a build so as I a viewer can relate.... its fundamental info that so many forgets or simply wont incl.. so kudos for that.. impressive build..

[@_guiborg]

you're developing their best souvenir

[@PanicAK]

How cool would that be if it could display whats on the real sphere in real time!? I would buy one instantly.

[@jakrordisreynolds8930]

@@PanicAK Would need Wi-Fi/Bluetooth

[@AlexHaines86]

@@PanicAK And with the idea of being able to show the advert in more places to a captive audience it may even be able to subsidise the cost somewhat.

[@ashman4827]

more like a chinese knock off souvenir... 😁

[@HansHeidman]

@@jakrordisreynolds8930 could use a raspberry pi zero 2 w for that and to drive the leds

[@mikebradlee3504]

Your pain, our gain. Thanks for hanging in there, through setbacks. You are smart AND humorous with the shake / vomit bit. I hope you are rewarded for your efforts.

[@RichardBaileyrichoncode]

Great project. Sharing some ideas: 1) white circuit board to improve reflectance 2) thinner diffuse 3) modeling to higher virtual pixel count then blending based on proximity to physical pixels - for smoother animation and illusion of higher resolution. 4) pre crease the triangle edges to achieve s cleans edge without stress on glue. 5) print gradient channel for cable foldback to guide cable inward at gradual angle and reduce stress. I look forward to future iterations.

[@635574]

You dont want reflectivity it would only blur it even further from scattered light

[@devadethan9234]

who are you my guy :)

[@MegaDRKSTR]

Also why do we have to paste it on top of a sphere? Instead print a geodesic frame and paste on top of that

[@matyasprorok5737]

@@MegaDRKSTR he eventually got to that. you can see it at 4:51

[@claudiu7909]

I think redesigning the board to have the cable at the bottom and not "in the middle" would make it easier to hide.

[@abatebiral]

One aspect of your video I rather liked was that you weren't at all afraid of sharing your mistakes. Thank you kindly, it was a really interesting video!

[@cyul]

You’re only at 10% brightness, that gave me an idea: use a flat (circular?) lcd, shine a light from below, and use a lens to project the image on the sphere? That would give you decent resolution, lower the price, and maybe be easier to build.

[@aronseptianto8142]

i wonder if there's any particular square tiling that would work best to estimate a cube. how custom can you go with LCD size?

[@CarlBugeja]

Cool but might be a nightmare to map the image

[@matsv201]

I was thinking it might be a mini dlp projektor with a lense. Thst would probobly work. It wouldnt even need to be that high of a resolution.

[@nickus9119]

Maybe combine an lcd with glas fibre. Superglue glas fibers on top of an LCD and arrange the other ends in a 3D printed sphere. Then put the difusor on top.

[@heeeyno]

@@CarlBugeja solving a bit of hard math once is cheaper than hardware :P also what about cheap square flexible OLED panels, with the corners tucked into the sphere to make the triangles?

[@retikulum]

I recently printed a moon that is illuminated from the inside with one light. Your video gave me the idea of displaying the current moon phase by using spherical LED strips + ESP and some programming.

[@TheOfficialOriginalChad]

YES a larger one with more pixels is worth pursuing. A sponsor (or Patreon) needs to cover your LEDs, but the result will be worth it.

[@pick2206]

YESSSSSSSs

[@TheOfficialOriginalChad]

@Dr.Kay_R look up the difference between OLED and an LED. It’s quite cool.

[@virtuerse]

+1

[@ExZiByte]

I vote for a basketball size maybe slightly bigger

[@XXPYR0XX]

why does he not just take the glass off a phone screen and use that and bend the leds around a ball at least then it will have a decent image.

[@DennisRyu]

There are two ways to improve this. First for the current build use a double diffusion. I wrote an article on Instructables once explaining that technique. Could go deep into the math but basically measure the distance between the LEDs, put a sphere with a material that has half the diffusion value of your outer sphere at a distance that is half the distance between the LEDs, then put the outer diffuser over it at a distance that equals distance between LEDs. Would get rid of the artifacts from seams and also makes it much more display like. Second idea would be using fiber optics. It would need a flat base that is larger then the sphere to house the LEDs but can then send the light from the LEDs to the diffuser sphere with varying length fiber optic cables. Could increase the pixel density a lot cause you could basically make it as dense as the fibers are thick. Just limited by the amount of LEDs you can fit in the base and amount of LEDs you are willing to put in. But can do even spacing better and just needs a bit of math to transform the flat image onto spherical locations.

[@mumiemonstret]

Very impressive indeed. There's a LOT of complexity in software, pixel animation and mapping that you didn't even touch upon.

[@CarlBugeja]

Thanks! Mapping felt to boring to explain in a video

[@ziomalZparafii]

​@@CarlBugejamight be boring for you, but very interesting for us 🧐

[@antman7673]

@@CarlBugeja You can always tell the viewer, that the video is over and that you touch upon some math topics such as mappings. No problem for the normal viewer and some people may enjoy it as well.

[@dereknavratil5466]

Nice project! Would you be willing to elaborate on the pixel mapping/animation software you used?

[@HimanshuGhadigaonkar]

Yeah please explain the mapping process and how you figured out a way to create a library to map any image into the way pixels are arranged.. also can you make it open source?

[@lancehough4180]

Very nicely done! As someone who has been to The Sphere and experienced it firsthand, I can say your little mini-Sphere is a wonderful reproduction. Seeing The Sphere in person was absolutely incredible. I sincerely hope you get the chance to experience it yourself. I have no doubt you'll be absolutely blown away by it.

[@UncleWalter1]

The thing I really appreciate about Carl is just how much joy he's clearly getting out of these explorations. I love seeing people visibly stimulated by what they're doing. It's infectious!

[@ENetArch]

Instead of mounting the LEDs to a Flexible PCB, mount them to the diffuser. Using rings, instead of triangles. You will be able to increase the density by making the rings smaller. Since, each ring is parallel, you don't have to worry about pixels being in different directions, or creases. At the very top you can use a circle with the initial 7 pixels in a star pattern.

[@thecrazy8888]

Forget the LEDs, try an OLED/LCD screen on the bottom and some sort of lens or crystal on top to project the image on the sphere.

[@SweetFlexZ]

Yep, work smart not hard

[@hmartinlb]

Was my first thought too, although I was thinking of how to splice together flexible oled displays, maybe with overlap. Now I like your idea more.

[@electronicsacademy2D2E29]

Awesome idea. The optics might be challenging, to project a 2D image onto a 3D sphere. Could it be a fisheye lens but used in reverse ? So that it projects the image on the sphere ? It's interesting :).

[@AgentPaperCraft]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZnyzpaSOdr9pbMk

[@ani_b]

Why not go a step further and use a projector? Something like the TI DLPDLCR2000EVM would work great and be fairly cheap too!

[@cameroncalzone8860]

amazing!! 🤩 it makes you wonder how many interesting and beautiful inventions don’t exist widely simply because they are not cost effective

[@JasonCoon]

Amazing work Carl! There are less expensive 1mm addressable RGB LEDs available. For example XINGLIGHT XL-1010RGBC-WS2812B (available on LCSC) for $0.0312 in quantities of 8,000 or more. I've used them in several of my builds, and they also seem to have a much lower quiescent current draw than others I've used.

[@xymaryai8283]

that is much better, are they of comparable size? i really hope he can get his tweezers on these and make this a lot better

[@t0biascze644]

@@xymaryai8283 he said they are 1mm

[@BrilliantDesignOnline]

@@xymaryai8283 Maybe his own DIY CNC pick&place mini-machine; would be a nice side project.

[@TheMilanMovies]

I love the animation you made at 5:30 The randomness between white and colors blurred by the diffuser is great!

[@jckrielesq]

A few ideas: - You might be able to source small triangular LED screens, I imagine that even if these do exist integration and cost would be terrible - Make use of an LED screen underneath an object that directs the light to maintain a perpendicular path to the screen, cutting it into the shape of a sphere. Then cover that in a diffusive surface. Basically, the guides act as glass fibres that direct the light from the screen to the surface, look up "Photonic Crystals periodic in two directions". I imagine sourcing that would be near impossible but there may be alternative methods for achieving a similar effect: high-resolution 3D printed structure coated in a highly reflective material,

[@MenkoDany]

I had the same idea, scoured the internet for some small triangle or hex led screens, nothing :( Only stuff on backorder with shady documentation

[@KeviPegoraro]

Smart idea, like some very danse 4k mobile screen, and to get the right diffuse to the parts that get projected in more area you just correct brightness in software, damn good idea.

[@cranberrycanvas]

I literally had this idea the first time I took screens down to the touch interface but it was a full sphere. So cool to actually see it!!! Nice work bro!

[@silverground3670]

6:43 a random factory in China can make it for less than $10

[@konm08]

I might, just might, be the 1000th comment on this video. Nothing much, just wanted to flex and also say that this video is well-made, and the amount of passion and patience needed here is massive, and the fact that you even got a good result at all is amazing. Greetings from Greece.

[@wyzedfz1495]

I really appreciate how you show the mistakes made in the process and how you tackle them. That's really educational. Keep it up!

[@armanx2]

in couple of years this thing will be sold as souvenir for 5 bucks probably , great job you earned yourself new subscribers

[@glufke]

Imagine that with a round OLED screen...

[@tecnogadget2]

@@Paradoxical124 by using multiple triangular screens its possible to

[@xksn]

@@tecnogadget2 yeah but that would be astronomical expensive

[@KagrithKriege]

And a lense

[@pvercello]

I want one. Someone figure out how to do it!

[@alexwhitton1]

That's what I was thinking, but that'd be soo expensive to develop

[@ycy-technologies]

incredible work! I want to offer you 2 different approaches: 1.) using fiber optics to convey light from more conveniently placed LED's to the curved surface. 2.) Use a flat LCD screen at the bottom and place a lens array on top to convey the reflection to a spherical panel. this would require some amazing image translation algorithms but ultimately bypasses all the issues you have encountered if it succeeds. Subscribed to you now. Good Luck

[@fazle.elahi.tonmoy]

i can not comprehend enough how difficult would it be to build this awesome project! Mechanical and Electronic side alone, how would you even manage mapping all the pixels into animation! great work!

[@Gulpy3]

I love seeing projects like this. Experimentation for fun with a side of "does it have practical use". Most times the answer is sadly no, but the passion for just trying something new and fun is infectious.

[@notRelevanti]

duuuuude, that's hardcore dedication! As usual, impressed by the ideas you have & the actual final results u come to.

[@shyrain67]

id love to see a bigger version of this that takes into account a lot of the ideas people have in the comment section. this is super cool

[@zxxvcc]

Wow - great project. Very ambitious!

[@brianm6888]

Im impressed. I wish you can come here to Las Vegas to see the Sphere from the inside of it as well as see it from the outside.

[@Maxjoker98]

Cool project as always! Maybe you can create a cheaper version of this with a more regular pixel layout by simply stacking regular PCBs that only have LEDs around the circular circumference. Or maybe create a bunch of really tiny triangular PCBs that can be tiled, including the connections, any solder them into a sphere.

[@TigerMe-ht8lv]

Pretty Cool! Whole family just visited Sphere last spring break.

[@SystemSh0cker]

Cool idea, but yes, costs too much if high pixel density is preferred/needed. :( I built something called the “POV LED Globe”. Mine is about 80cm? Diameter made of plexiglass/acrylic with a rotating axis in the middle. There are RGB LEDs on both sides (144 LEDs/m are used for each side.) One side is shifted a few millimeters, so I doubled the pixel density when spinning. In addition, the whole thing is in a vacuum so that there is no/hardly any air resistance and the background noise is also significantly better. The most expensive item in the whole project was the transparent ball at around €120? You can usually get two half-shells cheaply, but in the end they somehow don't look that great with the light refraction in the middle.

[@cdonthethird]

This is so cool! I love all the different functions you coded into the sphere, it made all the difference rather than just leaving it as a normal led ball.

[@logosking2848]

maximizing pixel density is just picking the smallest LEDs you can. equidistance is not a concept in non-euclidean geometry because there are multiple straight paths you can take to any point. fibonacci sphere is about as close as you can get, though. there are pretty solved problems so its just the spherical display itself left to deal with since wrapping a flat surface around a curved surface is impossible, the closest you can get is just maximizing the cuts on the surface so there's more potential for curvature

[@JediBuddhist]

Amazing engineering. Not sure if any one has suggested it but possibly changing the solder mask from black to white might mitigate the board visibility through the diffused dome. Good luck. Keep on keeping on.

[@clawjungleranger]

I drive by it every day on my way to work, still pretty neat to look at. Even when it's covered in video ADS lol

[@periurban]

What a great idea! I've long dreamed of a spherical display with a retina level of resolution. I'm not sure such a thing would be at all practical, but as a vehicle for an AI assistant I can imagine such a thing would take on a life of its own.

[@globalhell5046]

What a cute Kolobok you made

[@LaughingGravy.01]

What a lovely thing! The fact that it wont be mass produced anytime soon makes it a gem.CHeers!

[@ericon.7015]

@Carl try this a cellphone underneath and a curved lens to project in the dome. But it will be hard to find the correct lens. Another idea: fiber optics. Many of them. Make a flat panel with tiny holes where all fibers are connected, then attach it to the screen of the phone.. then the other end of the fibers you connect them to a 3d printed half sphere with many holes. aaaannd voilà you have a sphere display 😊😊

[@skatingskelly]

You are aware that would cost hundreds of thousands for the fiber optics idea? Military uses similar methods for their night vision goggles and they're suuper expensive

[@ericon.7015]

50pcs-500pcs 1mm* 2m PMMA Plastic Fiber Optic Cable End Grow Led Light DIY Decor, £4.49

[@revilogfx]

I was going to say the same. Max out the fibers possible. this will also result in a focused unblured imaged. Forget using LEDS the resolution will be to low. Good Luck.

[@lorddarthvader6289]

Honestly amazing that cool patterns and animations can be shown at this scale.

[@mikenco]

Amazing! KZbin algorithm sent me here. New subscriber!

[@TX2A]

As a suggestion, use a laser projector with lenses. The lasers eliminate focus concerns, and using a >180° fisheye lens should be able to hit the whole surface with a little software tweaking to map the surface. Then you can use a clear sphere with ultra-thin diffuser on the inside as rear-projection screen with no bleed at the surface. RGB Laser modules are off-the-shelf and have plenty of resolution.

[@tijssens]

A mini projector inside the dome?

[@eowhiskass]

thats a best idea

[@sdaverede]

He's mister flexible pcb, it would ruin his entire purpose if he solved it the right way 😅

[@Snowsea-gs4wu]

Is there a projector with enough field of vision to cover such a sphere?

[@Spoon_Of_Wisdom]

I don't think it have a wide enough view

[@cvspvr]

what about some sort of resin printed prism

[@BenM0]

Super awesome project. thanks for sharing

[@baili8654]

At least you got 48 thousand likes until 2024.7.8 including ming, your video is not only creative, but also educative!

[@Box-f2l]

1:55 totally basic my brain💀

[@syahrulzahwan]

Your projects are never dissapointing, every single one feels like a documentary or a conference paper, something i can learn from everytime.

[@RhodderzX]

Nice for the sphere would making a flexbble pcb in concentrical circles, which has a small bridge connecting them work? The bridge can then fold under one of the circles, which will create a bump but as shown with the vid, the bump under the diffuser disappeared. The concentric circles then can be stuck down on a sphere and may help with density, the linearity of the led's and to remove the lines seen through the diffuser.

[@AlbaraAlohali]

That was so much fun to watch! I love how you break down the cost at the end which is a big part of making a decision for pursuing any idea further!

[@yaheaserver5400]

use plastic oled

[@ChuckBaggett]

I've wanted spherical displays, triangular, pentagona, and hexagonal displays for decades, so it's good to see an attempt at a spherical or hemispherical display.

[@Nobody5555-]

no epilepsy warning for you

[@AK2I47]

Lol, smh. You all are not easy on youtube these days

[@Nobody5555-]

@@AK2I47 i mean more as in SEIZE

[@AK2I47]

@@Nobody5555- LoL

[@samster395]

You're always doing super cool projects, I love to see it. Shame on the cost because a football sized one would be so cool.

[@Julot]

⚠Epilepsy warning from 0:34 at 0:44 ! ⚠

[@DavidHands]

Great job. I think HD laser projecting through a phone fish eye lens onto the interior of a spherical glass light cover would be the best option to increase fidelity in the future.

[@DieterHenkel]

You should work on your audio - it is annoying as hell. Everytime you start a sentence the volume goes up. Combined with too little time between the cuts (-> merging of the two sentences where none should be) it is extremly distracting; if you speed up the video it gets even worse.

[@WakeMeWhen_WinterEnds]

Who hurt you?

[@thorminate2429]

@@WakeMeWhen_WinterEndsNo one, he was just criticizing the creator.

[@DustyGotBusted]

@@WakeMeWhen_WinterEndswhy are you protecting him from any criticism lol

[@ggglsoggle9758]

wompwomp

[@SemaEftal]

4ra ke events bohot entertaining hote hain, friend ki recommendation bilkul sahi thi

[@thomasg.6113]

Cool project! You could add a black transparent and maybe a clear (not diffused) cover it - you can still generate enough light but the colors will be much more vibrant.

[@OnurCagdas-g2d]

4ra ke events Finch ke saath aur bhi dhamakedar ho gaye hain, can’t wait to join in

[@MarkusJevring]

I've wanted to do something like this for a while, but couldn't figure out how to make a flexible display. This is a great start! What I want to make is a digital lava lamp. I might be able to use some of these ideas to that effect =)

[@jemlittle1787]

All I could think of was how can I buy one. Yes please consider continuing this project.

[@jeremyworkman3870]

Brilliant! Love your struggles with trouble shooting, and overcoming them. Possibly buying the LEDs in bulk would bring down the relative cost, but then you'd need to sell some.

[@RobCCTV]

A truly scientific engineering process. Well done!

[@pepe7drum]

The sphere guys should make a deal with you, that would be a lovely souvenir

[@MD_Builds]

Even more than the insane routing, the image mapping to the sphere is genius :D

[@Aero3D]

Dude! Please sell these! Even a 8" version, make it official Sphere merch and have it play content on the real sphere, thats so sweet!

[@AntonGudenus]

For that size projection through a fisheye lens would probably work much better. That being said; awesome work. That sphere is awesome

[@HypherNet]

Awesome work! Getting visualizations to look good on a low-res sphere is hard. In my experience, using an equidistant azimuthal projection works best for mapping. As others have said, oversample the image by projecting the geodesic geometry onto a larger plane such that each output pixel covers several input ones, then average them for the output. For pattens, I've had the best luck with a 2d fluid sim (SMA Fluid is a good lib). A 3d perlin noise run through a cosine function then mapped to a color palette works well too. That's what we do on the Radiance Dome, which is basically a 40' version of this. Love the tiny one!

[@Inertia888]

I could see a soccer ball sized version of this mounted to a fleet of drones. Each drone is a pixel in the light show, and each pixel has the ability to address individually. It seems like it would make for a stunning show.

[@KimSevern]

Rock and Roll! Great build. I feel sure some folks would pay a grand for one of those. I'll have to wait for the cost to come way down on a high volume run. Thanks for the video.

[@supersuper__liquid]

“…but there are a few disadvantages...” *flings away wildly as if on cue*. Comedic timing is on point! 👌

[@muggzzzzz]

You could use a bunch of optical fibers spreading out from an lcd screen to a translucent spherical shell. Once upon a time i got a night lamp with a bunch of optical fibers and a multicolor glass plate inside this lamp. The glass plate rotated and made optical fibers glow with different colors. I replaced this glass plate with a photo slide and got a rotating highly pixelated image of this slide on the ends of these fibers.

[@assa_ohee]

this channel will grow up because the explanation its so detail . Great job

[@nickcaruso]

Really cool to see. as an alternative idea, maybe superglue the pixels to the inside of the diffuser and then use very thin wire to connect them? You might be able to glue some pixels over the gaps between the tesselation of the first layer and get a smoother effect. You might have to build a positioning stage to move the diffuser under a small arm that could pick and place the pixels. UV curing glue to hold them in place maybe? maybe could use the same stage to place the wires with conductive glue to the pads. this is probably a crazy idea but it popped into my head while I was watching.

[@I86282]

Definitely. A scaled up version would pay for itself especially if you didn't want to keep it.! 👍👍

[@Konspirantas]

heres a simple solution: high res flat led matrix, spherical prism lens with a diffusor on top, some software to project the image for the resulting spherical output from a flat screen at the base. it should have a very dense and softly diffused image you can manipulate anyway you want. theres a more difficult but equally as fun way by using optical cables and a modified data stream to create a similar effect, with the right prefab parts of course

[@DavidHands]

Tiny vegas domes! A slightly larger high def spherical bed side lamp sounds like something I need.

[@daingovender6164]

at this point I feel like youd be better off with a flexible display and some fancy origami. if you made it a bit bigger the resolution would have been passable, but then the cost of those LEDs would have gone through the roof. ugh, sometimes theres just no winning, but im so happy and glad that you get to do what you love, and i love watching your videos! keep it up! and most of all, do what fulfills you!

[@kristophershaun]

I think it's worth it! You probably learned a few things that will be helpful in a future project :)

[@tharii314]

Well, a standard display has more than 945 pixels in a single horizontal line. But you have done a great work right there. Godspeed for a denser version!

[@ZeynepEbru-b3g]

4RA pe games aur events ka maza hi alag hai, dost ki recommendation pe khela tha pehli baar

[@STEAMerBear]

You are brilliant-and I suspect this may make you famous. A tech company like Google, Apple, Sony, TI, LG or Samsung could easily develop a spherical screen at 4K resolution (functionally on par with MSGs Sphere) if consumer demand (and the developer imagination) are there. (If it’s too hard for them maybe TCL or Hisense has the vision to manufacture high-resolution non-planar displays.) I can immediately see applications in marketing, art, math, chemistry, physics, astronomy, engineering design, trades education, air traffic control and even real-time medical imaging. In all these spaces dimensionality could really improve the transfer of useful information and knowledge. Once solved, an inverted sphere (and MANY other compound-surface-conforming displays) would become trivial.

[@Dorff_Meister]

Awesome Proof of Concept and love the animations. I cannot imagine it is worth the cost of up-scaling, but hey you took it this far and you know most of the pitfalls. GO BIG! :P

[@KOOLlE]

First time watching anything from you from a fellow malteser.

[@tanahy310]

A cheaper and easier approach would be to construct rigid circular pcbs of different diameter per latitude level on the sphere. Then, you keep them in place with some pins on a base sphere and put a diffuser on top. If you are worried about the PCB blocking the light, maybe you can place the LEDs on the edge of the pcbs and the base sphere covers right at their edge so diffuse light outwards better. Good work!

[@GARDNSOUND]

This made me smile. What a joyful creation!

[@jadenC613]

The quality of this video is awesome. Great engineering!

[@axs203]

This is brilliant. I was wondering whether we would see that eye! Good on you. It makes me want to build stuff. KZbin videos with people building stuff are so interesting!

[@RainbowSheep_was_taken]

really cool, i might build a similar sphere but a bit bigger and with more pixels. awesome video!

[@chepulis]

Neat. Consider showing 3D video, or streaming live 3D video onto the thing.

[@SolarMillUSA]

Use an "adhesion promoter" to get the tape to stick REALLY well. 3M makes a REALLY good one. It will completely change your adhesive game.

[@BlendesQ]

definitely worth another try in a larger format, maybe just 3d print a sphere with the slots prepared for every LED (which you connect to the main inside with wires leading to every led through the spherical shell)

[@JohnMeacham]

I have done something like this with a pico projector and a fisheye lens projected into a translucent globe. Worked pretty well.

[@NFawc]

One of these with a far higher resolution as a desk toy would be epic!

[@Tacos135]

This is great! Amazing job! I like how clearly you explain everything in the video and that you even showed the mess-ups! God bless!

[@2025graduate2]

He has sparked a new passion in me. This looks so cool!