Paint with Light!
Our eyes hold onto bright images for a moment, and then quickly erase them. Move a bright light around, and it leaves a bright trail in our vision. The faster we move, the longer a line we can draw before it gets erased. What if we could hold onto that brightness forever? We could draw a line that never faded! If you have a webcam, you can try it yourself!
Instructions: Darken the room. Start recording. Waive a flashlight around. Play.
Press keys on your keyboard to control the app:
- SPACE Starts and Stops Recording
- R resets the image
- F records a single frame
- S saves image to file on your hard drive
- B Blurs the image slightly
This app requires Flash, and will ask you for permission to access your webcam. It will NOT send any images to Wondergy – your browser runs the flash program on your computer, and the images only go from your webcam to your screen. If you save an image, it will only save on your own hard drive.
How does this work? The app remembers the brightest value of each pixel captured while recording mode was on. It’s super simple. In old fashioned cameras, this was done by simply keeping the shutter open. It is called a “bulb exposure.” Folks have done amazing things with this idea.