Robo_Craft. Robotic Light Painting

In our ongoing research project Robo_Craft, we developed a application for industrial robots resulting in a light painting. The application makes use of the very precise positioning of industrial robots in rendering points and lines in 3d dimensional space. We have adapted a custom enedefector consisting of a rgb led light controlled by a Arduino board. We developed a connection between the robot controller and the arduino board that communicate in bynary language through the controller digital output board. We developed a custom code for the Arduino board and a conterpart in Grasshopper, that facilitate the communication between the robot controller and the arduino board. This is done to achive a perfect coordination between the robot movement and the colour of the painted light.
This is a a ongoing research that illustrates the creative use of lightpainting applications done with large shutter exposure photography and complex geometries developed in computational systems. By using the same paraemtric and algorithic environment for the forma development and the robot controll we were able to achive a smooth workflow that permits adjustemnts to positioning in real time and at the same time checks reachability of every point on the path. This streamlined development allows us as designers more freedom for formal explorations, wether they are focused on illustrating a complex minimal surface geometry, or the smooth development of spirals along a 3d nurbs curve.