Awesome project! I'd strongly recommend swapping in some antireflective glass. There's a couple affordable options with less than 1% reflection [1][2]. Made a huge difference vs. stock acrylic on my frames that get lots of environmental light.
[1] https://www.groglass.com/product/artglass-ar-70/
[2] https://www.framedestination.com/prod/sh/ultravue-uv70-pictu...
I have a similar display, and also use blue noise dithering. Mine is driven in the backend by a web browser, which means I was able to abuse CSS and mix-blend-mode to do the dithering for me:
ha-card::after {
content: "";
background-image: url(/local/visionect-dither.png);
background-repeat: repeat;
position: absolute;
height: 100%;
width: 100%;
display: block;
mix-blend-mode: multiply;
}
I thought I'd heard of all the dithering options from https://tannerhelland.com/2012/12/28/dithering-eleven-algori..., but surprised to read there's another one (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/3288) that was used in this project.
Samsung sells an LED TV specifically for this use case. Currently only at 4K.
That's a very neat project. The only issue I have with it is that it's basically a passive energy waster. It produces images by burning GPU power, when it could instead curate art from an existing amount of art (of which there is more to ever go through, almost in any category). Some projects that use AI could be replaced with other tech and be much more efficient.
I love it. 2 Ideas:
You should upload a massively complicated where's waldo like scene and have waldo appear in different places each hour.
Have a portrait with lots of subtle details but they change slowly over time. Ex. girl goes from earing-less to small earings to big earings. Just have lots of small details subtly change but at a rate which makes them hard to detect.
I remember seeing those Thinkpad X230 mods with an eink display and how a challenge was availability of the specific discontinued e-ink screen of the right size.
The mfg from the article has a 13.3" screen that would be fun to try a mod with: https://shopkits.eink.com/en/product/detail/13.3''ePaperDisp...
and impressive 1600 x 1200 pixels
Really cool project!
If you're into looking at different dithering techniques, there are a few interesting ones compared in this old CodeGolf question (disclaimer: I'm the one with the Fortran answer)
https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/26554/dither-a-...
I would love two wall mounted e-ink displays showing chess boards so my 14 year old son could play chess with his grandfather.
I imagine the game keeping track of whose turn it is and being able to give voice commands to make moves.
Then they could play games over a longer period of time, maybe make one move per day.
Love it. But way too expensive, especially because we don't know what the quality / price will do in the future when the patents expire.
For that price, you can buy a 42" color printer.
I've looked, and it doesn't seem to exist, but I still can't believe there isn't an emissive display on the market that can just emulate the look of a passive display. (i.e. match the 'white' of the display to inbound light)
All you need is a high quality RGB light sensor or three and an accurate way to dim a backlight. None of this seems very hard. Sure, it wouldn't show the shape of shadows or whatever, but it would still be highly effective. Why can't the image just go black when I turn the lights off?
This is really cool! I've wanted to buy something similar for a long time, but in RGB. I know Samsung makes the Frame, but its not hackable, and its a waste of power. I don't ever want the thing to function as a TV, just a way to display generative art.
At one time there apparently was this: https://mono.frm.fm/en/shop/ But the price was crazy. There's not much out there in terms of appropriately priced digital picture frames.
Posh frames e-ink friends! Here's my generative newspaper: https://i.imgur.com/tD1t9u3.jpeg
My wallet stopped at 13.3" though :)
Update for those who saw me post it before: I recently charged the battery for the first time since hanging it in March, which met my expectations.
Shout-out also to the people at Halbe Rahmen, the best picture frames in the world.
This is great! I would love to see a sample of the color input images and the resulting image on the display.
> We found that running 2 full white images did a good enough job, without disrupting the experience too much
Some devices actually clear by outputting the invert of the image. Maybe this will be faster
Fantastic project, thanks for sharing! Prohibitive pricing for home use, but I would really love to have that as a picture frame on the wall. One can dream for the future..
When are we going to have cheaper e-ink screens available? Anyone know if the situation has changed in the last couple of years? See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779
Shameless plug: I build devices like that and sell them. Battery powered.
https://framelabs.eu/en/product/artframe-31/
I use the 31.2" panel because it is 40% cheaper and has higher DPI, but the 42" panel is also possible.
E-Ink is a classic example of an artificially constrained supply chain designed to compete with far more advanced technologies.
What makes E-Ink so damn expensive?
Cool thing would be to listen to the speech in the room and use it as a prompt
Your company seems really cool! I love the maker spirit! Sick flip dot display, I have some from AlfaZeta, would love to get a bus one but they seem rare in the US. Photoroom seems like a fun place to work.
Casey Muratori has a decent blog post on the topic of blue noise dithering.
Is the control board actually wrong, or is the cable supposed to be origami folded for adjustment? A control board that works should be really close to the right one if it weren't.
In terms of battery powering it, I wonder how many amps it takes to power a refresh. The Salt driver is 12v, which I guess can be shut down between refreshes.
You have plenty of space behind the screen. Wondering if you could harness wifi signal to generate power. Given days between changes, perhaps you could harvest enough amperage to make a change.
Or maybe you could hide a Qi charger into the wall?
Don’t get me wrong, I like this project and the write up, but it seems a little bit overkill. These e-ink displays are 3 thousand each and this guy is the CTO of PhotoRoom. Hey it’s not coming out of my pocket and I don’t know if it’s company or personal money, but it seems a little bit off.
Tablet manufacturers would do well to consider that the picture frame is the desirable form factor for E-ink tablets, perhaps more so than the iPad style hand held tablet.
Look to what hobbyists are hacking to find commercial opportunity.
anything to not ask artists for display permission or pay a dime
>> instantly nerd-snipped
er, what?
This is cool!
Well done!
[flagged]
Got excited, but then you qualified it was AI.
AI art is not generative art, it is reductive "art". It requires samples of the art style you wish to cop, and it always produces something artificial and less than the sum of its parts.
On the other hand, generative art is procedural, and represents the thought process of a human being.
Better luck making meaning.
Well done. There would be so many more cool applications of e-ink if it wasn't $2,500 for a 42" display: https://shopkits.eink.com/en/product/detail/42''MonochromeeP... (minimum order 3)
For comparison a 42" full-color 60fps TV with remote, speakers, wifi, etc. etc. is $140.
It seems like the patent holder could be making a lot more money if they dropped the price.