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AR Fluid Simulation Demo

(danybittel.ch)
147 points danybittel | 6 comments | 01 Sep 25 04:38 UTC | HN request time: 0.26s | source | bottom
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Waterluvian ◴[04 Sep 25 11:12 UTC] No.45125914[source]▶
That’s very cool. There’s a science museum in Sudbury Ontario that has something pretty much identical to this, albeit with slightly less cool colouring. Beside it was a sand table that projected the topography of the sand. Both were so awesome to play with. My youngest kept wanting to bring the blocks to the sand table to make buildings.

A small thought: if your hand affects the flow and it seems cool, add a small fan to simulate the blowing and see if that has a meaningful impact on the sensation of the experience.

replies(1): >>45125960 #
1. danybittel ◴[04 Sep 25 11:17 UTC] No.45125960[source]▶
Ha, I've thought about adding a small fan too. Definitely need to do that.

Do you have a picture of the installation at the science museum?

The color just rotates through the oklab space (change hue only).

replies(2): >>45126028 #>>45126345 #
2. Waterluvian ◴[04 Sep 25 11:25 UTC] No.45126028[source]▶
Naturally I can only find a photo of the sand table (and a cool piece of halite in the background!).

It’s at the Dynamic Earth exhibit at the Sudbury Nickel Mine. This was a few years ago.

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3. _1 ◴[04 Sep 25 12:09 UTC] No.45126345[source]▶
We had this at Clemson University about 10 years ago. I think the whole design came out of an MIT lab though. There's video of it still up here: https://www.clemsongis.org/clemson-sandbox
4. dan_linder ◴[04 Sep 25 12:11 UTC] No.45126356[source]▶
it's not the exact science museum experience mentioned, but a quick Google search for "sand table video augment" pulled up a few, and this was the first one I found: https://share.google/89A6x4yfaw5a4hOuh

When the first Xbox were getting long in the tooth, I believe people were repurposing the motion tracking bar as the mechanism to measure the topography of the sand table. That, coupled with a video projector mounted over the top of the sand table provides the additional colors and elevation lines. (And of course a bit of cool software to process and produce the image.)

replies(1): >>45126953 #
5. Waterluvian ◴[04 Sep 25 13:18 UTC] No.45126953{3}[source]▶
This is one of those things that's really not that hard, nor expensive, with one decent hacker who wants to set it up. Maybe $1500 of parts? Feels like the kind of donation lots of people here could make to a local lower budget kids science centre. And I bet would be the kind of donation these centres would love to have.

As a bonus: you can likely make it out of "100% recycled e-waste" and "100% recycled lumber" (if you're building the table, too), giving it an extra educational theme. not only is this cool, fun, and educational, but it's a demonstration of doing something good with a used depthsense, projector, and computer.

6. danybittel ◴[04 Sep 25 13:25 UTC] No.45127020[source]▶
I've seen the sand table installation before, pretty cool. I was interested in how they did the fluid in particular. Thanks anyway.