
A camera that snaps a GIF and ejects a cartridge that displays it - wyldfire
http://imgur.com/gallery/CG9w4
======
ChuckMcM
Hah, not exactly what most people think when you use the word 'print' but then
again ...

People have asked what is the impact of 'free' CPUs. Something Dave Rosenthal
realized way back in the 90's was that the electronics for driving a display
could be printed on the margins of the display and eliminate the need for a
separate controller board. Having watched the evolution of displays and seeing
Mary Lou Jepsen's work on the PixelQi and other screens it became fairly clear
that it still made sense to use silicon for the controller and glass for the
elements, but once you get to OLED technology (no backlight) and printing on
plastic substrates then you reach the point where you can imagine something
like this project but the size, weight, and thickness of a Polaroid picture
rather something the size of a cigarette box.

At its simplest, imagine an OLED display driven by reading out an EPROM
printed on the borders. Your camera encodes the image in the EPROM and then
whenever you apply power to the "picture' it shows the one image.

Certainly something there to explore, a number of engineering challenges
between there and a product though.

~~~
ctdonath
I've long imagined something like that: a card-sized (including thickness)
full-color display devoted to displaying, say, an entire movie. Given ultra-
thin displays like OLED, dirt cheap storage, and "free" dedicated processing,
you could hand out videos like sales brochures or cheap paperbacks.

Amazing how technology has advanced.

~~~
thanatropism
Tangential, but at some point of the last 15 years I thought the music
industry might move to distributing what amounts to dedicated MP3 players/USB
sticks. The simplest ones would be squares with album covers (shrunk like CD
covers have shrunk from vinyl), but artists could get 3D creative. You could
wear your music in necklaces or in your belt. People would flock to these
things as conspicuous consumption (as they already do with tshirts, pin-
buttons, etc) which would offset piracy.

All of this is viable and cheaper than ever, but the culture has moved on.

~~~
Washuu
That already happened in 1999, but with the limited storage.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HitClips](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HitClips)

[https://i.pinimg.com/736x/37/db/da/37dbda2593cb4889feb05b3a8...](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/37/db/da/37dbda2593cb4889feb05b3a8b2b56f1
--s-childhood-childhood-memories.jpg)

~~~
geon
The cheapish mp3 players of that era had barely enough power to drive a pair
of in-ear earphones. If you ised a pair of over-ear ones, you would get hardly
any base at all.

------
cr0sh
This is one of those projects that at first, is easy to dismiss as "silly" or
"useless". On the surface, sure. But looking at the imgur album and reading
the comments (and I would imagine going to the website, etc - which I haven't
done), it becomes clear (and the author even says so on the album) that this
project ultimately served a larger purpose:

From start to finish, this project has helped the person develop a complete
(or nearly so) set of manufacturing skills. An idea was taken from concept, on
through a multitude of other steps (design, prototyping, software development,
hardware development, etc), to producing a final working "product".

Now - it seems from the comments in the album that this isn't the authors
first go at such a project, but it may have been one of the most complex or
largest they have done. Regardless of that, it has helped them to hone and
develop a complete set of skills very few people have.

Heck - I would encourage the author to try turning this project, or something
similar, into a MOOC in some manner; I don't know if this is possible, or if
it has been done before, but I bet there's a growing audience of people who'd
love an all-in-one course to study to gain such skills. Part of the problem of
implementing such a thing as a MOOC is whether a person has access to the
needed tools and equipment; maybe that could be part of any pre-req's? Or,
maybe people would pay for such a course, and parts or tools could be provided
(kinda like those "boxed recipe meals" you can get)?

Ultimately, I liked seeing this project; even though to me it seemed
"frivolous", it really is a physical form of "random play coding exercises"
software engineers do from time to time, in order to learn a new language or
framework, or just to try out ideas or whatnot. Such a project thus becomes a
education and learning opportunity of a very intense sort.

If this individual hasn't gotten any job offers or such, I would seriously
question "why not?" \- they have shown a level of competence and follow
through rarely seen in a single individual, and they should be considered a
valuable asset to a company (that, or this person needs to create a startup or
something).

~~~
developer2
You analysis is on point. The comments on Reddit in particular were so far off
base. On one hand you had people raving about how this needed to be patented
and produced for sale - those people are (perhaps optimistically) out of touch
with reality. On the other hand were people laughing in his face for how
ridiculous this was to produce as a project, because it's _obviously_ not
marketable ("I am so smart").

It goes to show how the average person thinks - everything has to be about the
ability to make money, right? Why should anybody do ANYTHING if it's not aimed
at directly producing income? So few people remotely understood that this has
NOTHING to do with the final product and its (non-)place in the world. This is
about learning a lot about _every step_ , from concept and design to an
extremely complex production process, of a single interesting idea. No, it's
not about patenting. No, it's not about mass-producing in China to get-rich-
quick. No, it's not about showing off "an amazing 23rd century Apple product",
which it is clearly not.

Reading deep into the comments about his resulting product made me even more
cynical about the average population. People just don't get it. The overall
assumption is he's trying to invent the latest thing to sell people. The only
reason to do anything in life must be backed by capitalist ambition! It is an
idea, brought to fruition by one man's amazing ability to dedicate himself to
learning - and performing - the entire process. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR
OWN SKEWED INTERPRETATION OF HIS SUPPOSED INTENTIONS.

tldr; People's obsession with capitalism seeps into everything they come
across. You can't share the result of your labour without people only being
able to see the possibilities from a capitalist point of view. Everything is
viewed from a capitalist (if not, then political) standpoint; anything else is
apparently unfathomable.

tldr #2; I am envious of this product's creator. I wish I had even 5% of the
creator's vision, ingenuity, ambition, or skill - let alone all four of those
attributes.

~~~
klez
That's a problem you sometimes see here too, on the various "Show HN"s.
There's always some comments along the lines of "nice, but how will you
monetize this". Seeing this is a website geared towards startup culture it's
something to be expected, to a certain degree. But it makes you wander about
the shifting meaning of the word "hacker".

------
abhi3188
Hi guys, I am the creator of this camera! happy to answer any questions..
didn't know it was doing so well here on HN :)

~~~
DonHopkins
Will you develop a noir cartridge for making beautiful black and white error
diffusion dithered animated gifs?

[https://media.giphy.com/media/l0K7o6Tn4JsJtvDMc/giphy.gif](https://media.giphy.com/media/l0K7o6Tn4JsJtvDMc/giphy.gif)

[https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.msg112434...](https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.msg1124342#msg1124342)

~~~
abhi3188
could easily be programmed in. I was already thinking of experimenting with
filters.. printing a black case to go with it shouldnt be a problem

~~~
foobarge
The print could have buttons to trigger different filters.

~~~
abhi3188
yes I was thinking of experimenting with filters. I decided not to add more
buttons since it is a touchscreen and it made more sense to program in an
interface when needed rather than set it in stone through hardware

------
fairpx
Very cool. If you can make that cartridge dirt cheap, you will have invented
an exciting new technology. Build a V2 with cheaper tech, change your wording
a bit as to what the device does, keep the polaroid link a little bit, but
make it your own and then I think you'll have something that could kick ass on
Kickstarter.

~~~
QAPereo
Make the carts NFC and turn Share on when you remove it. You could Tap to swap
whatever gif is currently displayed on someone else's cart. That's probably
easier than dirt cheap, disposable displays.

~~~
disposabledisp
Do disposable displays exist? The ones i have, at least, aren't biodegradable
at all, and are in fact barely recyclable at all.

Seems like you're proposing an environmental disaster.

~~~
nomel
You guys are all nuts for taking this silly project seriously. I'll just use
my phone.

~~~
wruza
This project fits the generation of non-tech adults pretty good. My grandma
for example still asks me to clear her sms inbox because phone op spams it
with ads and she hardly can do it herself.

Few decades later this will fall off from reality, of course (if we'll still
retain the strict sense of reality then at all).

Upd: supporting your point, I suggest all people here evaluate buying _this_
thing vs. buying a tablet with _only_ two functions: view gallery and view
image (and seamlessly download these from fixed photostream that you can post
to as a remote contributor).

------
nathancahill
Pretty neat. Crazy it uses an adhoc wifi network to communicate between the
camera and the cartridge. Seems overkill for a battery powered device when
they are already plugged in to each other physically.

~~~
dogma1138
Overkill but much easier from a technical point of view considering what was
used to make the cartridge.

~~~
wongarsu
My first thought would have been to connect the two PIs with a serial
interface. Sure, that's another two pins to connect between camera and
cartridge, but on the surface it still sounds easier than setting up a
reliable ad-hock wifi. The fact that it would use magnitudes less energy is a
bonus.

Of course it might be that OP evaluated that and decided against it for good
reasons.

~~~
dogma1138
But then you need to worry about other things and it's also likely much
slower.

Ethernet just works it's an established protocol and there aren't that many
easy ways to transfer files other than it today that work out of the box and
with any combination of hardware and software.

~~~
nathancahill
> you need to worry about other things

Serial I/O is common Hello World example for Raspberry Pi. I think you have to
worry about _less_ things than adhoc wifi networks.

> likely much slower

It's slower, but not much slower. The baud rate can be set up to 4,000,000,
where a megabyte would transfer in 2 seconds. These "gifs" don't seem to be
more than 10 seconds long, so they should be less than 1 MB, judging from
random Giphy mp4s.

~~~
dogma1138
Is common yes but not as easy you can't easily setup file transfer over
serial, in this case a simple FTP to a pre determined folder that the screen
grabs the gifs from is a heck of a lot easier to setup than sending a binary
file over serial.

------
twiss
If I add up the parts of the cartridge, I come to around $88 (including a $35
touch screen).

The demo makes me wanna take a picture like that and give the cartridge away.
Maybe if it can get under $10 that would be feasible? And before that, at $20
or $30 they could sell them at theme parks where they take your picture in a
roller coaster.

~~~
wongarsu
The price of his battery and power converter are pretty insane, and a
Raspberry Pi is convenient but overkill. Given a more price-conscious part
choice and at least some volume (since what's the point in building only one
cartridge), you should be able to get that to $5 plus display fairly easily.
Suitable displays can be found for $10 from Amazon (shipped from China).

So you can probably home-build it for $15. If you're a startup in Shenzhen it
might be feasible to sell them assembled for $10 and make a nice profit if you
can sell a million of them.

~~~
abhi3188
I agree, this is something I built entirely with off the shelf parts so the
cost is bound to balloon.. The cost can be brought down significantly like you
said

~~~
wongarsu
I think most of the cost is just the tradeoff between getting stuff tomorrow,
or one month later from china at a fraction at the cost. If money isn't an
issue, paying more to get stuff faster is certainly more productive.

------
ctdonath
How about actually printing, then laminating on a lenticular surface providing
a "GIF-sized" short moving-image effect?

[edited per comments]

~~~
mortenjorck
I presume you mean "lenticular" \- which would be a very cool (and possibly
mass-producible) alternative. I wonder how you might go about performing the
lamination inside the camera... Perhaps you could feed it a pre-laminated
sheet that is thin enough that it can be printed on the reverse side?

~~~
cr0sh
I would imagine that such a device would be difficult to build so that it
works correctly the majority of times it is used. Even if the "reverse
printing" idea could be done (I like the idea, btw), it would have to be
extremely exact to line up the "pixels" of the images with the individual
lenses. Perhaps a print-head with some kind of camera on it to see where it is
printing as the head passes over the lens could be done?

Recall that these kinds of "motion picture cards" have been around for
decades; at least 40 or 50 years, maybe longer. If such a camera (or even a
home-based process) could have been built for consumer use, it probably would
have been sold. The fact that it wasn't, and the fact that even during all
these years there haven't been many manufacturers of such images, should give
you an idea of how difficult registration of the image stripes with the lens
can be. A purely mechanical process (printing the image onto some kind of
paper, then laminating the lens over the top) probably can't be easily (or
cheaply) done - otherwise it likely would have been.

That's just my take on things, of course; maybe I'm completely wrong, or
there's some method or such I am missing that could make the system easier to
build today? I do think the idea of "reverse printing" might be a step toward
it. I can't think of how you'd build such a thing to be hand-held, but I can
imagine a desktop-sized machine being potentially possible (again, using some
kind of close-imaging camera or some other method to register the printing of
the images with the individual lenses on the plastic).

~~~
huebnerob
Well, things that may not have been possible printing-wise 10 years ago could
be possible today. Meanwhile, in the same time period, the world as a whole is
moving away from physical media, so I don't think there's many people working
in this space. This is just to say that I wouldn't be surprised if it were
possible today, it's just that no one has cared.

------
switchstance
I was expecting a GIF flip book.

~~~
skykooler
That would be cool, though I imagine it would take much longer to print.

------
stillsut
Lenticular Images allow you to create 2D photos that move:

[https://media.giphy.com/media/ZPJO1M6RViPT2/giphy.gif](https://media.giphy.com/media/ZPJO1M6RViPT2/giphy.gif)

~~~
jdironman
I wonder what the limit of...well for lack of better word 'frames' that would
be on such an item?

~~~
stillsut
There's a trade-off: MoreFrames vs. EasierToUse.

Imagine placing one of these images on machine for say telescope positioning
and performing a controlled rotation with a perfectly immobile observer. You
could probably get 100+ frames. Now imagine pulling it out of your wallet and
playing with it the car. A dozen frames at most?

~~~
hughes
I'd be surprised to get more than 3 or 4 frames. But 4 thoughtfully selected
frames can still convey some pretty cool action!

------
js2
> I replaced the functionality of the black knob. To be honest I don't even
> know what its purpose was.

Exposure compensation dial.

~~~
abhi3188
ah thanks for letting me know! I was just working off images of the camera I
found online, I guess I could have actually used it to control exposure on the
piCam

~~~
js2
I'm old enough to have used the SX-70 and OneStep as a kid. Complete with the
flash bulb bar. It helps that my dad owned a darkroom/camera store (and
eventually one-hour lab). :-)

------
kw71
This is pretty cool!

I noticed the author decided to use metric thread machine hardware. He's
probably an American because he specified McMaster-Carr as a source.

#4 and #6 machine screws are a lot less costly here and available everywhere.
(Your hard drive screws are 6-32, same as the electrical wall boxes; floppy
4-40)

I personally hate unified threads, on the basis that the rest of the world
uses iso threads. But this is one of those times that being a pedant about it
would increase the cost.

~~~
abhi3188
I'm just in America but not American which is why I refuse to accept inches
and weird numbering for screws haha.. it's worth the few extra bucks for me,
you're right though, you could modify the design and use cheaper screws

------
strictnein
Yes, this doesn't exactly "print" a GIF, but it's still a cool use of hardware
and tech, with a nice writeup of how it was all accomplished.

~~~
abhi3188
glad you liked it

------
Multicomp
Reminds me a bit of the old dreamcast memory card

------
kuldeepkap
very neat! I was expecting a hologram print where you move side ways to see
image animate. Something like this - [https://images.britcdn.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/02/Ubersn...](https://images.britcdn.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/02/Ubersnap-2.gif)

------
kazinator
Why specifically the GIF format internally? I haven't seen a GIF come out of a
digital camera in ... ever, actually.

~~~
kens
In the "new lingo", GIF means a short animated image loop. See, for example,
/r/gifs or Twitter's "Add a GIF" feature. A "GIF" can be in .mp4 format, for
instance, so there's little connection (other than historical) with the actual
GIF image protocol.

~~~
nilved
Let's be part of the solution instead of the problem.

~~~
farnsworth
It's only a problem if you're a tech pedant.

~~~
nilved
I'm not a pedant. To me, the word "pedantry" describes the colour of the sky.
Get used to it.

~~~
ringaroundthetx
To me it describes excessive concern with minor details and rules.

but thats none of my business tho

~~~
ryandrake
I think the problem is "what words actually mean" has become a minor detail to
some people.

My high school English teacher would not have accepted "language evolves" as
an excuse for things like confusing "then" and "than" and not knowing the
meaning of the word "literally".

~~~
burkaman
Your high school English teacher was wrong. Words mean whatever people think
they mean, much like how money is worth whatever people think it's worth. Of
course as an individual you can't unilaterally redefine a word, just as you
can't declare that a $100 bill is worth as much as a car.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Until it's time to get a normal job.

~~~
burkaman
At most jobs it's more important to communicate effectively than it is to know
the historical definitions of words.

Of course, words don't have universal meanings. Lawyers and scientists use the
word "theory" differently, for example. In any given environment, you should
use words the way the people you need to communicate with expect them to be
used.

------
tau255
Great trick with laser cutter and black paint on the pcb. I wonder how end
resolution compares to milled pcb.

Also this is one of problems I have with Imgur. How to archive such detailed
imgur post?

I have tried ripme [1](great for grabbing image sets without addnotations),
printscreen browser extensions (mixed results - most do not cope with floating
menus and have problems with dynamic image loading), page saving or printing
via browser (similar problems with dynamic loading).

Does anyone have seen something that could archive imgur post with all
content?

1\. [https://github.com/4pr0n/ripme](https://github.com/4pr0n/ripme)

~~~
LeifCarrotson
> Great trick with laser cutter and black paint on the pcb. I wonder how end
> resolution compares to milled pcb.

Eh, I thought this was a point where they made the wrong call. You can get a
much better result for less money and less personal time invested - just wait
a week or two - by sending your Gerbers off to be manufactured. PCB
manufacture is dirt cheap and has extreme quality compared to home-etching
your boards.

~~~
tau255
In home shop it all comes to what is easiest. Most boards that I do are single
runs. If laser cutter can do single run on site without hassle of getting
toner transfer or uv run that's great. I did not see that this is different
from single run operation (considering how it is wired) so no point to wait
for pcbs. That can wait for tens or more pcbs.

Also it boils down to personal need. This is hand crafted and tailored piece.
With this setup you can easily modify and correct everything to work.

------
MindTwister
His Hololens Super Mario is awesome as well
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN95nNDtxjo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN95nNDtxjo)

------
michrassena
I enjoyed seeing the design and build process. There's a long way to go to
make a product out of this. I also wonder whether there are legal downsides to
using the look and feel of the Polaroid "rainbow" nextstep (which was famously
the source of the now-retired Instagram logo).

It would be very neat to have a credit card sized screen with a micro-
controller and a bit flash doing the work rather than a full-sized computer.

~~~
abhi3188
yup I did think of doing that but wanted to do this version with off the shelf
components that others could replicate easily

~~~
michrassena
That makes a lot of sense. It's a great project and I hope you can continue to
make refinements to it.

------
otto_ortega
Nice little project, I can only imagine the amount of hours it took to
complete, but it is definitely a nice demo of the creator skills. Congrats.

~~~
abhi3188
thanks, glad you liked it.. I definitely wasn't doing it with the purpose of
showcasing my skills, but more with the purpose of cementing them.. all of
this is just a real good bonus :)

------
lisper
Wow, this is awesome! It's like a magic painting from Harry Potter's world,
except real. Muggles rule! :-)

~~~
abhi3188
glad you liked it!

------
artur_makly
Very proud to have my fellow ITP'r Shek rock'in the top of these charts.

For those on the cross-roads of life.. Consider NYU's ITP program to be your
next spring-board into the future:
[https://tisch.nyu.edu/itp](https://tisch.nyu.edu/itp)

you won't regret it.

------
racl101
If only there was a device that could capture several images in succession to
create a moving image.

Boy that would be something.

~~~
jacobush
Kodak will release such a device later this year. But it might be vapor ware.

------
pramodzion
[https://i1.wp.com/images.wikia.com/harrypotter/images/a/a0/P...](https://i1.wp.com/images.wikia.com/harrypotter/images/a/a0/Prisoner_of_Azkaban_-
_Sirius_Black.gif)

------
ctdonath
"print" = transfers image data to a removable screen

"GIF" = short video

~~~
jahabrewer
"dial" = tap light that looks like buttons on a piece of glass

Language evolves.

~~~
StavrosK
And until it does, we need people like the GP to translate.

------
dmritard96
I really loved the mechanical design. Designing for 3d printing (especially
fdm) can be tricky if you don't want to spend lots of time cleaning up support
material. Very cool.

~~~
abhi3188
yup you definitely have to keep that in mind while designing. luckily the
projet 7000 SLA printer, prints with supports that are actually a pleasure to
remove.. You have to be more careful about preventing resin accumulation in
any part as it could cause deformations

------
chris__butters
This has to be one of the best self started little projects I've seen that has
the biggest throw back to my childhood growing up when polaroid cameras were
popular.

------
ge96
Man, turn that into transparent electronics interlaced with photovoltaic
cells.

A lady was looking at me menacingly in a store today as I used the cardboard
bags.

------
peterjlee
I think wizards call this a normal camera.

~~~
logfromblammo
The camera is not the interesting part. The cartridge is the cool thing, and
the camera was designed and built solely as the means to show it off from a
very restricted frame of reference.

In order to maximize the effect, the cartridge should be programmed to
"develop" the initial image with a visual effect from a black screen, and then
hold there for a few seconds. And then, when the person you're showing off to
starts to think "Ah, this is just a digital version of a Polaroid photo--
that's not so impressive," _that_ is when you start looping the animation.

You have to give the person a chance to make an assumption before you break
it.

~~~
abhi3188
a lot of people make that assumption long before the cartridge comes out but
adding in that second surprise layer might be cool too

------
cdiamand
This is so cool! The assembly GIFs really show how much work went into this.
Thanks for sharing.

~~~
abhi3188
there was so much more than that really but it's the best I could capture. Was
also getting tired of documenting by that time haha

------
nickphx
Awesome work, thanks for sharing such great detail and technical resources
needed to replicate.

------
cedricium
This reminded me of OTTO, made by Next Thing Co. (same people behind CHIP and
PocketCHIP).

------
cm2012
Just like Harry Potter. I would buy one of these if it was available with new
cartridges.

------
iRobbery
but! Does one still have to shake it and wait to see the image 'appear'?

~~~
jscissr
Yes, there is a fade in effect (but no shaking). It is mentioned in the post,
you have to click 'Load 13 more images' at the bottom to see the whole post.

~~~
abhi3188
polaroid actually recommended against shaking so I decided to do away with
that.. was thinking of adding an accelerometer before that to trigger the
reveal

------
mintskoal
This is really, really cool.

~~~
abhi3188
thank you :)

------
snambi
Just incredible... involves h/w, s/w, devices.. awesome!!

~~~
abhi3188
thanks, glad you liked it.. I have a love-hate with these kinds of projects

------
CharlesDodgson
well , this project certainly makes me feel inadequate in my achievements :(

I wish I had the wherewithal to have applied myself in college and learned
more than I just needed to learn!

------
orvado
That's some next-level geekery right there. Outstanding!

~~~
abhi3188
:D thanks

------
grimmdude
So does it have to boot up before you can use it?

~~~
abhi3188
yes, it does boot up. But I boot to the console, no GUI so its relatively
quick and all the scripts get initiated on startup

------
minademian
an awesome (in the literal sense) piece of work - hardware, software,
engineering, design, communication, promotion

~~~
abhi3188
thanks, glad you enjoyed it

------
daveheq
Is this called a Giferoid?

~~~
abhi3188
haha I did consider that name at one point of time, decided against it

------
tarikozket
So impressive, great work.

~~~
abhi3188
thanks!

------
exabrial
How creative! Nice work

~~~
abhi3188
:) glad you enjoyed it

------
SKYRHO_
Quirky, but thumbs up!

------
softbuilder
That project looks like a lot of FUN, which I think some folks have missed was
the point.

~~~
abhi3188
ya I did try to state that in the top of the imgur album as well

------
dabdeal
wow!

~~~
abhi3188
:D

------
metalliqaz
you said "prints" but I saw "programs"

~~~
krelian
He didn't say anything, you read it.

------
dumbfounder
Looks more like regurgitation.

------
eljimmy
I was fully expecting that object coming out of the camera to be something
like a stack of post-it notes with images printed on them. Very misleading
title.

~~~
Romanulus
We need to stop outsourcing. /s~

