Illumination



This is a page dedicated to the Illumination portion of the Work Breakdown Structure for our PTM device! This part of the project is under the leadership of Sam Valerio with the help of Scarlett Montanaro, Ashley Miller, Dashiell Kopp, and Eric Scaraglino.

//__**Sunday, 12/5/2010, 7 P.M.:**__// Meeting with group members.
 * Reviewed goals and tasks of the Illumination group: to identify and decide on a type of visible light source (Incandescent, LED, flourescent, etc) for Phase I PTM Dome. Also to research multispectral imaging and plan in advance how we will incorporate it into Phase II.
 * Discussed our approach to decide on this light source and our plans for the Winter Quarter:
 * 1) First priority is to get new members of the group up to speed about light and its characteristics
 * 2) Learn about different characteristics of lights. (wavelength, bandwidth, spectral distribution, etc.)
 * 3) Determine the characteristics the chosen light source should have based on our requirements (distance, size of object, safety, etc).
 * 4) Learn about new methods of characterizing light, meaning different instruments that could be used.
 * 5) Procure light sources.
 * 6) Run development tests, using various instruments, such as a spectrometer or a light meter, to characterize sources and determine whether or not they match our requirements.
 * 7) Decide on a light source.
 * 8) Final testing in dome.
 * Talked about what information we already know:
 * 1) Rough size of what the dome will be.
 * 2) Size of objects we would like to image.
 * Went over what we do not know yet.
 * 1) What are the characteristics we need to test for? (As in names of characteristics such as wavelength, etc.)
 * 2) How do we know when we have the best light source? What SPECIFIC characteristics are we looking for? (As in number values of these characteristics i.e. a wavelength of 700 nanometers)t
 * //__Thursday 12/9/2010__//**
 * Called Oznium, a website that sells LEDs. Told them our requirements and asked for a recommendation based on angle of illumination, brightness, etc.


 * //__Week of 12/13-17/2010__//**
 * Scarlett and Ashely conducted further research, while collaborating with the camera group's requirements, on Oznium and Mouser websites to find LEDs to buy. Also considered some incandescents.

//__**T**__**__uesday 12/14/2010__**//
 * Finalized a schedule in class about when to have lights tested and chosen by.
 * Met with Emmett Ientilucci. Discussed basics of Radiometry. Difference between Radiometry and Photometry.


 * //__Friday 12/17/2010__//**
 * Sent final decision on what light sources to order to Joe. Ordered 10 mm and 5mm white LEDs, 5 mm green LEDs, 5 mm incandescent bulbs.


 * //__Tuesday 1/4/2011__//**
 * Bulbs waiting for us in lab on firstclass day back from break. Used class time to try and power the sources. Scarlett used a breadboard and a USB hooked up to the computer to power them. Lights went on! But the "10 mm WHITE LEDs" were somehow orange...
 * Called and had the correct ones sent to us!

Illumination/Electrical Group = Sam Valerio, Eric Scaraglino, Scarlett Montanaro, Dash Kopp, Ashley Miller =

**Justification for Purchases:**
====**LEDs** **__:__** Before ordering LEDs we researched websites that sold quality lights and selected __[|www.oznium.com]__ as the site we would work with. After selecting them, based on things such as light quality, customer ratings, recommendations, and price, we contacted them via phone to try to get some of their suggestions and recommendations for which lights to purchase. Though we didn’t end up purchasing what they recommended, we did follow their recommendation for color and power. What they recommended was a larger light that was more expensive and that was set within a base that we weren’t too thrilled about (it’d be harder to work with when putting in the dome and it was limiting in the direction the wire could face because the wire was pre-set within the base). Hearing what they had to say and discussing what we thought was best for our class, we decided that taking a different route would be just as efficient. Keeping in mind the recommended light color of warm white, and the recommended light angle of higher than 75 degrees, we went on a search. What we decided to do was purchase small, 5mm-10mm, lights which can be clustered in order to produce a comparable angle to the larger ones, and can be manipulated to produce as much or as little power/energy as we want. Specifically,the LEDs that we purchased include ten 5mm bright white. Moving forward we hope that the cluster pattern will lead to clusters having white light, as well as UV and infrared. With a bit of programming these clusters would be able to turn on the white lights, then the UV, then the infrared, to produce three unique PTMs within a reasonable amount of time, and with little effort. ==== The LEDs that are most in question are the ten 5mm green ones. These ones took us a lot of debating and discussion to arrive at a conclusion to purchase them, but once we got to our decision we were very happy with what we decided. When meeting with Emmett, our group learned that the visible range of light spans from 400nm-700nm (roughly) and that the peak sensitivity for our eyes lies at 555nm, which is directly in the center of the green portion of the spectrum. Thinking about this and considering its meaning within our project we thought it’d be interesting to purchase green lights that have a wavelength of 525nm, only 30nm less than that peak sensitivity point. We aren’t sure what to expect, but what we hope we find is a PTM that is more easily perceived by the human eye and that is easier to view and pick out details from. These LEDs have the same qualities as the 5mm bright white LEDs that we purchased, the only thing that we altered was the color, simply to see exactly how much more sensitive our eye is to the peak sensitivity point. Also, because we’re certain some are wondering, we left out the other colors simply because the eye is less sensitive to other colors when they are isolated from the rest, and because the colors are more for the second phase PTM anyways. What we hope to see in the phase two PTM are infrared and UV LEDs, and possibly more colors based on what we see with the green lights. ==== **Incandescent**__:__ When looking to purchase incandescent lights we again had to search for quality sites in which to purchase from. For these we relied heavily on recommendations, and ended up buying from a site that Scarlett heard of through an engineer; [|__www.mouser.com.__] Once in the site we were able to narrow our search based on things we desired in the lights we purchased. Here, we limited our search based on size and voltage. We knew that we wanted small bulbs that were no larger than 10mm in width, and that the voltage would ideally fit within the power range that could be provided with a simple 9 volt battery. Our reasoning behind wanting bulbs no larger than 10mm was the idea of making clusters. As with the LEDs, we are planning to cluster the incandescent bulbs in order to maximize light angle and in order to give us more of an ability to manipulate the brightness/power, and to make good clusters that aren’t too large you should get smaller lights with a fair amount of power. Also, we varied the size by 2mm between our two types of incandescent in order to see what effect size has on clustering. We hope to be able to conclude if larger lights or smaller lights make better clusters, and be able to provide data or reasoning behind our conclusion. With these limitations set, we began to consider other things that we wanted in our lights. Thinking about the electricity part of the lights, we knew that the pin length had to be large enough to provide for easy soldering. If the pin length was too small soldering would take a while, possibly setting us off schedule, so we had to be careful not to go too small. Another consideration behind the purchasing of our incandescent lights was the brightness. The site that we used gave brightness in candlepowers, which is a very obsolete unit of measure when dealing with energy, so we had a tough time dealing with this aspect, but knowing what we learned from Emmett we were able to make a good estimation as to where we thought the brightness should fall. We are a little more uncertain as to how these lights are going to work, but going by what we thought of when we were purchasing, they should be good lights for our project. ====


 * //__Wednesday 1/5/2011__//**
 * Met with Emmett Ientilucci again. All learned in real-time how to use a piece of equipment the center had just purchased: the Radiometer. Became our equipment survey the next day (see Equipment Surveys page).

__**//Thursday 1/6/2011//**__
 * Equipment survey on Radiometry and the Radiometer.


 * //__Tuesday 1/11/2011__//**
 * Dave Kelbe further explained some Radiometry terms for us.


 * //__Thursday 1/13/2011__//**
 * Scarlett taught the rest of Illumination/Electrical how to use a breadboard with a 9V battery.
 * Put the Radiometer to use with our first order of lights!


 * //__Monday 1/17/2011__//**
 * Scarlett met with the Camera group to test light sources with camera. BAD NEWS! - LEDs we bought, even in the clusters of four, did not provide enough light for the camerato get a decent exposure time. Area of lighting was also not large enough or even enough. Determined that we need to try larger clusters, as well as experiment with a diffuser, which spreads out the light more evenly and over a larger area.


 * //__Tuesday 1/18/2011__//**
 * Scarlett and Ashley worked with Kurt on using the diffuser with the LED clusters.


 * __//Thursday 1/20/2011//__**
 * Tested an incandescent bulb, from a company called Solux, that was in a projector we took apart. Solux is the brand of lights Mark Mudge of Cultural Heritage Imaging uses with his company when they make their PTMs. Turned on the super bright bulb, Stefano tested it with the camera, and to everyone's surprise, it produced VERY excellent results! Now have a few options to work with: consider Solux, or other brands that sell a similar bulb, and work more with the diffuser for the LEDs.

//__**Tuesday 1/25/2011**__//
 * Scarlett, Sam, and Ashley went to visit Solux in the Rochester town of Gates to talk to Kevin McGuire about the light sources they manufacture. Very good results. They make bulbs that are mainly to imitate daylight, and many of their products have flatline spectral curves. Also have diffusers put on their lights to even out the distribution of the light but still have a strong intensity. Bought a test bulb. Also found out that some of Solux's products, including the bulb we bought, even go into the infrared range to a certain degree. We will perform tests with a Spectrometer in the near future to verify this. Required an A-type socket so we went to Home Depot after to buy one and an extension cord.


 * //__Thursday 1/27/2011__//**
 * Tested the Solux bulb. Worked very well with the camera, but it turns out the bulb itself gets up to 200 degrees farenheit while the acrylic dome can only withstand around 185 before it begins to melt.
 * Decided to break up some tasks among the Illumination group, while getting some help from other groups with these tasks. We decided to look into LEDs more and not completely rule them out. Set up a meeting with Dave Wyble of Color Science to get a recommendation on some places we can find LEDs, since they do much research with LEDs in his department. Also designated a task of determining the rise/fall time and the warm up/cool down time of the Solux bulb to try and see if we could have it on possibly for enough time for the camera to get a good exposure but not time enough for it to get too hot and melt the dome.


 * //__Tuesday 2/1/2010__//**
 * Equipment survey on Electronics and Electrical Safety.
 * Scarlett and Sam went to see Dave Wyble. Gave us the name of a company that makes designs and sorts of "light shows" (for lack of a better description) using very bright LEDs, but doesn't specifically make the LEDs themselves. Want to contact them to see if they can give us some of their stock to test or even tell us the name of their LED manufacturer.

//**__Tuesday 2/7/2010__**//


 * Kurt and Ashley retook pictures under different lighting. The pictures and brief captions follow.

Solux bulb at approximately one foot away. This bulb has a sand blasted diffuser custom made onto the bulb itself so that there is no question with the diffusion. It is a halogen bulb and runs at 3500 kelvin on 50watts. Cluster of four 5mm bright white LEDs running on two 9 volt batteries. This picture was taken with a was paper diffuser over the bulbs so that the spread of the light was diffused across the view and not "spot lighted" into a single area. Cluster of four 5mm bright white LEDs running on two 9 volt batteries. This picture was taken without wax paper diffusers in front of the bulbs so there is a clear spot light effect within the picture.

Illumination group discussed on cluster lights. We plan to order more light bulbs and research light sources including UV (Ultraviolet) and IF (Infrared) lights.
 * //__Thursday 2/10/2011__//**

Eric's idea on UV lights: Eric's idea on IR lights:

__//**Tuesday 2/15/2011**//__ With the help of Maggie and Jenna we were able to capture better images of all of our lights under testing. All were taken from a foot away on a black material so that we could get the best comparison of lighting.

Cluster of four 5mm bright white Oznium LEDs without a wax paper diffuser. What's important to notice, here, is the spotlighting affect in the lower righthand corner.

Cluster of four 5mm bright white Oznium LEDs with a wax paper diffuser. The wax paper clearly gave a more even spread of the light, but the lights still aren't providing the amount of light we need to produce a quality image.

Halogen Solux bulb with a sandblasted custom diffuser built into it. You can clearly tell that the light is more diffuse over the surface of the object and material, the only set back for this light is the fact that it produces a lot of heat and sends it all forwards towards the object.

High intensity Oznium LED floodlight (warm). This light, along with the following col light, offers a very wide angle spread of 120 degrees and a very even spread overall. They stay cool and they produce a desirable amount of light for our project, making them a top candidate for the final phase one PTM.

High intensity LED Oznium floodlight (cool). Like stated above, this light offers a wide angle spread, a diffuse lighting, and an ideal amount of light for our project.

Phase Two Idea
Just an idea for a phase two structure. A quarter arm with lighting clusters, rather than just one consistent type of light, could allow for an easy change between lighting types, and could make taking multiple PTMS, under different conditions, a very likely possibility. A brief costs and benefits analysis follows the picture, mentioning things that should be considered when looking at the structure below. The included list most likely does not address all concerns in regards to the structure, but, at the same time, it probably doesn't list all of the benefits of this sort of structure either.


 * Note: the bullet near the camera should read, "separate camera stand makes for a sturdy camera mount, and could easily lend itself to an adjustable nature..."

March 22nd 2011
Today we began testing the UV, 5mm, LEDs that we had in the lab, as well as the 18in black light bulb that Eric brought in. All of the bulbs were tested with a Spectrometer in order to get a better understanding of their light spectrum, and where they fall in respect to the UV light range. Without calibration it was found that the oznium lights peaked around 410nm, putting them in the visible light range rather than the ultraviolet range. It was also found that the 18in black light peaked around 370nm, but, due to the florescent nature of this light, it gave multiple peaks in numerous other places within the spectrum as well.

Below are some pictures taken to capture the testing of the bulbs.



The raw, non-calibrated, data is as follows:



We also took time to test a few diffusers today in order to characterize their capturing abilities for future use. The following are a few pictures from this testing process. Basically, a halogen bulb was used as a light source and the diffusers were placed, one at a time, in front of the bulb. The spectrometer was used to capture the light spectrum that was produced as a result of the diffusing.





Some IR Light Pictures
Using remotes, and a Canon PowerShot SD1400 IS, a few pictures of Infrared lights were able to be captured. What was most important about this very basic testing was looking at the range of the light; how far away could pictures be taken, how large of a light angle was provided, etc... With only limited capturing ability, it could be concluded that the light angle was probably around 30 degrees (so quite small) and that the intensity of the lights, when used individually, was not great enough to get a decent picture. Further testing with the appropriate camera will provide more details, but the following pictures are what was captured with the Canon PowerShot.

Taken looking right at the light on the remote. Attempting to take a picture of a key with the limited materials. Whats important to notice is the spotlighting that is seen almost mid picture. The blue-ish spot in the left center is the light, the mark to the right center is the illuminated key. Also, it is obvious that the lighting is incredibly dim. Picture of a different remote's IR light, taken looking directly at the remote.

__//**Thursday 3/31/2011**//__ Data for Flat-fielding Exercise:

This is an image generated in photoshop to simulate an image taken of a constant background, with a light source with non-uniform illumination across the field of view. This data will be used to model the falloff in illumination due to this light source. Because we know that the object being photographed has constant brightness across the field of view of the camera, the only variation is due to the light source. We wish to minimize the variation in brightness due to the light source. This image will be used to do that. The process is referred to as "flat-fielding".



Concepts for Phase II and development of PTM:

Sample Pictures of Reflection and Transmission Light: Images shown above are lights being reflected off the paper. The left image is with room light. The right image is more focused flash light onto the paper. Images shown above are lights being transmitted through the paper. I drew different stains on the paper to show how light transmission is affected by it. 

=Wiring the Phase One Dome (Thursday April 14th)= Today we successfully wired the 23 cool white LED floodlights into our phase one dome, making it look like, what we dub, a tangled jellyfish. Even with the crazy appearance, our dome was able to be beautifully controlled by the software group's program, meaning that we now have the ability to run our lights in a series! It was an incredibly successful day, and we are all ready to see this thing finally come together. Though we couldn't take any real PTMs yet, because the camera hasn't yet been hooked up to the system, we did take a few pictures documenting the progress made today. The following are a few of such pictures, enjoy! Scarlett hard at work connecting the lights to the relay. Two thirds of the wires are hooked up and ready to go! With a bit more work we will get this thing running! Pointing to the mess that awaits... Finished, now lets test it!! PTMs of Dave? No, just making sure that lights work!  =IR Clusters =

Tuesday 4/26/2011
Our 5mm, 940 nm IR LED light bulbs were put into cluster form today. Using K'nex pieces we were able to place four bulbs into an organized cluster for the phase two geodesic dome. The bulbs are held in by gorilla glue, and will later be wired into bread boards for their power supply. Note: The cluster size of four LED bulbs was decided upon based on a series of pictures taken with differing cluster sizes. Histograms of the images were compared, and four bulbs was decidedly the best, and easiest, option for our phase two dome.



4/28/2011

Transmission of Light Images: Video media type="youtube" key="wdGwNrf3YAI" height="349" width="425" Get a material stand to insert the material inside. Get a light source (although it may not be dimmer, we can increase/decrease the distance of the light source to the object to adjust its intensity. Then we capture the results of the transmitted light with a camera.

