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Control Lightshow Over Dublin Sky From A Webpage 162

Posted by Hemos from the fun-with-CGI dept.
nev4 writes "Ireland is celebrating their EU presidency for 2004 with an interactive lightshow over Dublin. The project, Vectorial Elevation, allows people to control the 22 searchlights (154,000 watts, can be seen for a 15km radius) shining over Dublin by submitting a design on the project's website. The designs are queued and a new design is displayed every 14 seconds from dusk to dawn (GMT +1). You can see an aerial view of the city and the current design via live webcam or browse snapshots of previous designs. The tool for submitting deisgns also contains a 3D model of the city that you can pan around or "walk-through". Once you submit your design, you can opt to receive an e-mail when it is being displayed; when I submitted mine there was no one in the queue, so it was displayed immediately."
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Control Lightshow Over Dublin Sky From A Webpage More

Control Lightshow Over Dublin Sky From A Webpage

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  • Add a bit more power... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Winlin ( 42941 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:01AM (#8972550)
    ...and you have the first lifesize Missile Commander game.

  • Oops (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cipster ( 623378 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:02AM (#8972561)
    No way this will abused at all... I look forward to seeing goatse in all its glory displayed over Dublin.

  • In other news.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by paranode ( 671698 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:03AM (#8972573)
    Residents of Ireland reported seeing lights representing penises and men bending over with apparent gaping holes in the rear over the skies of Dublin. More on this as it becomes available.

  • Astronomy (Score:5, Funny)

    by kevlar ( 13509 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:04AM (#8972581)
    The local In-House Astronomer at Univ of Dublin must love this thing...
    • This must be their way of pissing at our National Dark Sky Week last week.

    • Re:Astronomy (Score:2, Informative)

      by aurelian ( 551052 )
      There isn't really one.

      There are astronomers working in Dublin (a small number of them anyhow), some of them with connections to Dublin University. However, as with all other cities elsewhere in the world, nobody (to my knowledge) does any observation work from Dublin or its environs any more. They used to, at Dunsink Observatory.

    • Re:Astronomy (Score:2, Interesting)

      by cadelor ( 103919 )
      > The local In-House Astronomer at Univ of Dublin must love this thing...

      Yea, us amateurs really love it too... some discussion, and a picture from my back garden about 10 miles away at the Irish federation of astronomical societies forum http://www.irishastronomy.org/boards/viewtopi c.php?t=707 [irishastronomy.org]

      And just when we were starting to make progress on light pollution... At least this is only going to be there for a couple of weeks.

      Cheers,
      ~Al
      Irish Light Pollution Awareness Campaign
      www.irishastronomy.or [irishastronomy.org]

  • Message I submitted (Score:4, Funny)

    by cexshun ( 770970 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:05AM (#8972584) Homepage
    Here's what my message says in some nice WordArt:

    "We are celebrating our EU presidency for 2004, and all we got is our web cam Slashdotted."

    Poor fellows.
    • Surely its celebrating the accession of 10 new EU members (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Rep., Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Malta and Cyprus on May 1st) swelling us to the largest organised group of people on the earth after India and China?

      I'm sure our country isn't so egotistic to celebrate a usual (even if rare) event such as the EU presidency.

      Could someone fix the posting?
      • Sorry I should have been more specific, it is celebrating the accomplishments of the EU as a whole under the Irish presidency (hence the location). That's not to say that the Irish administration is responsible for the expansion (nor are they trying to take credit for it), but rather the administration is using the presidency as a platform to welcome the new member states. My apologies again for not clarifying this in the original post.

  • I'm trying to SLEEEEEP!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by dwalsh ( 87765 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:05AM (#8972595)
    So if you would stop pointing it at my flat, that would be appreciated.

    An annoyed Dublin resident.

    • Re:I'm trying to SLEEEEEP!!! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Linker3000 ( 626634 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:15AM (#8972692) Journal
      Bullshit - if you are a REAL Dublin resident, you'd either be:

      1) In a pub

      2) Busking outside Bewley's Oriental Tea Rooms

      3) Trying to find a parking space around St. Stephens green

      4) Stuck in road traffic somewhere along the banks of the Liffey

      Sleeping - my ar*e

      • Bullshit - if you are a REAL Dublin resident, you'd either be: 1) In a pub 2) Busking outside Bewley's Oriental Tea Rooms 3) Trying to find a parking space around St. Stephens green 4) Stuck in road traffic somewhere along the banks of the Liffey

        Or bricking in the lights on your way to by heroin from a drug-dealing asylum seeker </Evening Herald>
        ;-)

      • 5) Kicking the shit out of you for propogating stereo types. Kicking the shit out of you and all your descendents if you are Irish and wrote that.

        • I don't see how having problems with traffic and parking is an Irish stereotype. I have the same problem in the town where I live, and we're populated with elite intellectual types.

          Sounds to me like the parent poster knows something about Dublin, so he either lives there or stayed there long enough to learn about its traffic patterns.

          Also, I'd say hanging around in a pub/bar is average behavior for most guys around the world. Just because there's a huge Irish drinking stereotype doesn't mean that most peo
          • Busking is street performance, with the idea of soliciting money.

            Playing music, jugling, miming, singing, puppetry, performing, dancing, comedy, and just acting like a fool in front of many people with the hope of getting money is what busking's about.

            I've never been to Dublin, or Ireland at all (though I am Irish-->American), but I have a hard time beleiving that an abnormally large number of Irish people do this for a living (judging by my family). But maybe I'd be wrong in that assumption.
        • I could have done much better if I'd really wanted to use Irish stereotypes don't you think!?
          Tongue was firmly in cheek when writing my posting - lighten up.

  • Woo! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Dark Lord Seth ( 584963 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:09AM (#8972622) Journal

    Can I project my phone number so whole legions hot irish girls will call me, wanting hot passion?

    • Re:Woo! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by pubjames ( 468013 )
      hot irish girls

      It is true that some Irish girls are totally hot. They are also very free-willed and strong headed, and are likely to tell someone such as yourself to get stuffed, only in more colourful language.

    • Your phone number in lights over a major city. Even if some hot irish girls try to call you they won't be able to get through with all the pervs and crazies tying up the line.

      On a less public spirited note, please give it a try and post some of the calls you get on here for our amusement.

    • Re:Woo! (Score:3, Informative)

      by Kohath ( 38547 )
      I think it would only work if your phone number is all 1s.

      And that's my phone number.

  • Im in Dublin .. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Fawad ( 644568 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:09AM (#8972625)
    And I can say they're pretty amazing - the range is much more than 15km (I saw them visiting a friend from Leixlip over 25km away). They make this city beautiful - The messages were uncensored initially, but then the authorities smartned up - to an extent! :) Try submitting something in a different language..

  • Campaign for Dark Skies (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:09AM (#8972629)
    This is not a pleasant sight if you are interested in preserving the night sky.

    Once again the environment suffers to satisfy the vanity of politicians.

    The night sky should be dark as this allows wildlife to not be disturbed, we save energy reducing CO2 emmissions and the next generation of kids might just get interested in astronomy and science in general.

    http://www.dark-skies.org/

    Aside from this - yes of course its pretty - but I'd like it to be limited up to 12 midnight, and only use sodium light which can be filtered out.

    Clear dark and steady skies

    Torcuill
    www.aberdeenastro.btinternet.co.uk

    • Re:Campaign for Dark Skies (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      That was an awsome show!!! I liked when they implanted the alien ganglion in the guy's wife. That was hot!!!!
    • Not many people realize the effects of having too many lights in the sky. There are many animals out there that navigate using the night sky.

      I'm from South Carolina, USA, and we get a fair share of sea turtles. They lay their eggs on the beach. Once those eggs hatch, the babies head for the sea using starlight. Unfortunately, they mistook some hotel's parking lot lights as stars and went the wrong way. Many were killed by being run over or just being too far from the ocean. A lot of volunteers spent
    • You are talking about light-pollution.... over a city ?

      Noshit you posted as AC.

    • Sodium lights are high-pressure, which means the spectral lines are spread out and difficult to filter. Mercury arc lights are low-pressure, which means the spectral lines are narrow and easy to filter.

  • It's a sign... (Score:4, Funny)

    by consolidatedbord ( 689996 ) <<brandon> <at> <ihashacks.com>> on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:09AM (#8972631) Homepage Journal
    Can somebody say Bat-signal?

  • SPAM? (Score:5, Funny)

    by maxwell demon ( 590494 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:10AM (#8972639) Journal
    Wait until the spammers find out. Then you'll see on the sky:

    MAKE MONEY FAST!
    URGENT BUISNESS PROPOSAL
    Buy \/IAGRA!

    And the next spam message will not say any more "AS SEEN ON NATIONAL TV", but "AS SEEN ON NATIONAL SKY".

  • My Message? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Oxy the moron ( 770724 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:12AM (#8972659)
    "All your searchlights are belong to us"

  • New Site (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:13AM (#8972669)
    In order to avoid the impending slashdot effect, Dublin moved the website to its new home: http://www.DriveOurCityInsane.com/ Apparently the lights are just the first feature. In the future they're going to incorporate music that viewers can upload and play across the city, voice synthesizers to read off posted comments and various other things guaranteed to drive residents nuts. Apparently they got the idea from some guy from the midwest's [drivemeinsane.com] home project.
    • Back when I were little, some creative artistic design student designed to create a sonic sculpture in our local park. Essentially, this consisted of a large metal pole with a number of loudspeakers/air-horns attached. Each of these was activated a large jump-switch hidden by green canvas designed to blend in with the rest of the park. To "explore" this system, kids just had to run around and jump onto these switches. Needless to say this wasn't popular with the neighboring residents.

  • my message (Score:3, Funny)

    by boarder ( 41071 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:14AM (#8972679) Homepage
    Mine would have to be:

    (up arrow) (up arrow) (down arrow) (down arrow) (left arrow) (right arrow) (left arrow) (right arrow) B A Start

    • fucking moderators (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by boarder ( 41071 )
      How in the fuck can that last message be modded Overrated when IT WAS NEVER RATED IN THE FIRST PLACE?!

      Then it got modded Offtopic?! It's completely Ontopic! You can submit a message/picture to be displayed by the lights during the show, and I posted what I wanted displayed. How in the fuck is that Offtopic? And how can a negatively modded post be Overrated?

      Maybe it wasn't funny, but I shouldn't get punished for that. Hopefully those fucktard mods will get smacked down in metamoderation and their poin
    • I personally find it pretty funny and definitely on topic. Wish I'd thought of it first. -Jake
    • Oh good ol' days of Contra man...

      I remember watching those 5 pixels clumped together and my brain automatically interpreting them as a human face.

      Back then, you had 5 pixels for a face on a console, or 1 big square for an entire human if you were going to use a home computer.

      On a related topic, if I could go back in time to stun myself, I think the one thing I'd really want to do is fire up a game of space quest 2 in a DOS Box, make it run full screen, and show my self from the past that screen... Ju

  • What is really cool is the 3D model at http://www4.alzado.net/edparticipar.html Could you set this up with Doom or some similar game? I could then reproduce a trip from the Burger King near O'Connell bridge across to the Centra - which I do on the occasional Friday night. Of course in this version I could shoot the person who grabs a taxi I flagged etc. Pow-Pow (Various Gun sounds!!)

  • Units ? (Score:5, Funny)

    by BESTouff ( 531293 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:26AM (#8972797)
    (154,000 watts, can be seen for a 15km radius)

    Could some sensitive clod convert these to American Units please ? What does 15km and 154000 watts mean in miles and libraries of congress ?

    • Re:Units ? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Nf1nk ( 443791 ) <nf1nk.yahoo@com> on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:42AM (#8972948) Homepage
      that would be enuogh light to be seen in most of Rhode Island and make half of the library of congress readable on a dark Texas night.

      no thanks nessisary

    • Re:Units ? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      $ units -v 15km miles
      15km = 9.3205679 miles
      15km = (1 / 0.1072896) miles
      $ units -v 154000watts 'libraries of congress'
      Unknown unit 'libraries' :)

      A watt is a unit of power, a typical lightbulb to light a room has 100W, a typical PC power supply has 250W. I don't know what strange units you use in US, so I can't convert... perhaps:

      $ units -v 154000watts hp
      154000watts = 206.5174 hp
      154000watts = (1 / 0.004842207) hp
    • What does 15km and 154000 watts mean in miles and libraries of congress ?


      It means your car makes forty rods per hogshead.

    • Its nearly as bright as a Florida tourists shirt and about as far as you need to drive when you want to cross the street to the next shop.

  • Ummm. Wouldn't it be better at night? (Score:3, Informative)

    by mykepredko ( 40154 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:28AM (#8972819) Homepage
    Before going ahead and spending an hour creating your masterpiece, wouldn't it be a good idea that you first check to see what the conditions are like?

    Right now in Toronto (Eastern Daylight Savings Time) it is 11:30 AM and in Dublin it is 4:27:56 PM IST (Irish Standard Time?).

    It might be a good idea to wait a few hours before submitting your project, designed to be intuitively obvious to any extraterrestrial beings that there is intelligent life on Earth...

    myke

  • Great Project (Score:4, Informative)

    by bjpirt ( 251795 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:33AM (#8972856)
    Another version of the original which took place in Mexico for the millennium by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer [telefonica.com]

    This guy does get up to some really interesting stuff.

  • Tell them what you think! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by infolib ( 618234 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:34AM (#8972872)
    The Irish presidency is now handling the software patent issue. After the EU Commission proposal got blasted by the Parliament (thanks Parliament!), Ireland has now put forth a "compromise" [ffii.org] that's even more pro-swpat than the original Commission one. So why not remind them of the main anti-software-patent organization and the 300'000 signatures by spelling "FFII" across the Dublin sky?
  • Just add some Leprechauns to kill in the 3D street model.

  • Screening for content? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mechanik ( 104328 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:37AM (#8972907) Homepage
    when I submitted mine there was no one in the queue, so it was displayed immediately

    Is it just me, or does it seem like they are opening themselves up to trouble by not having some sort of screening program in place for the designs? How long before a giant, vector graphic representation of the goatse.cx guy is seen floating over Dublin?

    Mechanik

  • Speer (Score:4, Informative)

    by Quila ( 201335 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:41AM (#8972939)
    Too bad Albert Speer isn't still alive. He knew how to arrange a searchlight light show!

  • What better way (Score:3, Flamebait)

    by Richy_T ( 111409 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:41AM (#8972946) Homepage
    of celebrating the astronomical waste of money that is the EU than wasting taxpayers money shining light into the stars?

    Rich

  • I'd rather be looking out for Comet Bradfield (Score:4, Interesting)

    by alanxyzzy ( 666696 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @11:49AM (#8973022)
    Shining searchlights into the sky is light pollution.
    http://www.darksky.org/ [darksky.org]
    http://spaceweather.com/ [spaceweather.com]
    If you have wake up before dawn this week for work or school, take a pair of binoculars outside and scan the eastern horizon. You might see Comet Bradfield. The comet, which had a close encounter with the sun on April 17th, is now emerging from the sun's glare. Although it's too dim to see with the unaided eye, at least for most people, by all accounts Comet Bradfield is a beautiful sight through binoculars, its long tail stretching 10 degrees above the rosy glow of the rising sun.
  • ...make an image of liquor-smelling PUKE surrounded by a cloud of noxious cigarette smoke? That would be perfect for dublin. Personally, I won't waste any of my time on it.
    • Not any more - I've been boycotting the pubs since you can't enjoy your cloud of noxious cigarette smoke with your liquor any more :(
    • I will be recreating this project as of Friday night after my dissertation is handed in. I will be outside Kitty O'Hanlons in the zeroth Plymouth with a pen-torch. Post below with your requests and I will do my best to mimic them in my drunken stupor.

  • BlinkenLights (Score:4, Interesting)

    by phlegmgem ( 633566 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @12:20PM (#8973304) Journal
    Isn't this similar to the blinkenlights [blinkenlights.de] project?

  • What a terrible waste! (Score:4, Funny)

    by hoover ( 3292 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @12:21PM (#8973312)
    What an apalling waste of energy. Just think of all the Guinness that could be brewed with that much electricity!
  • I was out and about on Saturday night and it's really cool. The actual designs aren't great but it's pretty mad the way they all change around every 14 seconds. It's kinda like that 20th century fox thing that you see before a film 8) O'Connell Street's getting to be bit crazy, first big pole is stuck in the middle of it and now this. I wonder what other ingenious ways they're gonna waste money...

  • Impressive (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Gopher971 ( 219910 ) on Monday April 26, 2004 @02:21PM (#8974623) Journal
    I have to admit it makes an impressive sight. My apartment is only 200 hundred yards from O'Connell St. The patterns have been getting more intricate in the last 2 nights as users have gotten more adventurous.

    Many are getting all the spotlights to shine on one narrow band of "The Spire" [irish-architecture.com]. It then shines like a lighthouse right into the apartment.

    Expect some good viewing tonight as cloud cover is 100%.

  • Impression (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dh5fbr ( 209173 )
    Walking home from the lab I found it looks quite good. 9MB *.mov at tcd.ie [cs.tcd.ie](if someone could mirror it, might be useful)

    Next step would be to take some consecutive slots and make some kind of movie.

    Have fun
  • If you look at the lights and compare the VR to the real light display, there are about 3-4 lights that look totally off. A lot of good it does if the lights aren't properly calibrated...

    but then again, it's a government job, right?

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