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Survey of Alternative Displays
  • Survey of Alternative Displays - 2024 Update Notes
  • 2022 Update Notes
  • Introduction
  • Outline
  • Standard Displays
    • Standard Displays Overview
    • LED
    • Projector
  • Alternative Displays
    • Overview
    • Transparent
    • Volumetric Displays
    • Modified Polarizers
    • Electronic Paper/E-Ink
    • Flexible Displays
    • Lasers and Laser Projectors
    • Lenticular and Multiview Displays
    • Light-field Displays
    • Head Mounted Displays
    • Circular and Non Rectangular
  • Techniques
    • Overview
    • Pepper's Ghost
    • Projection on Static Transparent Material
    • Volumetric Projection
    • Projection on Water or Fog
    • Diffusion and Distortion Techniques
  • Experimental/Other
    • Overview
    • Physical/Mechanical Displays
    • Switchable Glass
    • Drone Displays
    • Ultrasonic Atomization of Water
    • Electrochromic Paint
    • Light activated and other Reactive Surfaces and Materials
    • Scanning Fiber Optics
    • Acoustic Levitation Display
    • Plasma Combustion
    • High Refresh Rate Displays
    • Other Experiments
  • Legacy
    • Overview
    • Cathode Ray Tube
    • Eggcrate and other Numeric Displays
    • Glasses-enabled 3D
    • Pyrotechnics and Other Curiosities
  • Closing Notes
  • Appendix
    • Holograms and the Ideal Display
    • Misleading Terms
    • Notes about Touch Screens
    • Virtual Production and XR
    • LCD Polarizer Removal
    • DIY Transparent Screens
    • Acknowledgements and Additional References
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  • Flipdot
  • Split Flap
  • Mechanical LED
  • Other Mechanical Displays
  • Interactive Haptics
  • Ferrofluid Displays
  • See also:

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  1. Experimental/Other

Physical/Mechanical Displays

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Last updated 1 year ago

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  • Flip-dot

  • Split Flap

  • Mechanical LED

  • Other Mechanical Approaches

  • Interactive Haptic

  • Ferrofluid

Image of a Flip-dot Display —

Some artists also work with display surfaces that don’t emit light or use optics at all. Most of these displays are entirely custom and work with a massive array of motors or other electromechanical means. Haptic communication is another big one that is being explored with this type of “display.” The line between sculpture and information display is really blurred with these, so its tough to quantify exactly what falls into a display and what is just a lot of motorized elements.

Flipdot

Split Flap

Split flap displays are similar to flip-dot displays in their electromechanical approach and visual effect. These use a small register of individual image flaps that are flipped with a motorized element to display different information. These displays were used in old alarm clocks to display the time or on things like train billboards to show arrival/departure information. One of their most unique components is the noise they make when flipping between states.

Mechanical LED

of a similar technology, but most of the common examples seem to come from this company. At one point a similar technology was installed in Times Square but it wasn't there for very long. PJ Link also has other mechanical displays that fold, rotate, and slide.

Other Mechanical Displays

The studio Breakfast also has a number of products and past installations that utilize electromechanical elements for different display techniques. They have used thread to create images such as the below project:

See also:

Interactive Haptics

This project uses actuators and elastic thread to create an interactive abstract topography

The technology below is also in the haptics space. Ultraleap uses ultrasonics to create a sort of physical feel above a screen. It feels a bit like a constant puff of air through a straw. TanvasTouch is a technology that essentially uses mild electrical current to simulate different textures on a glass touchscreen.

Ferrofluid Displays

Ferrofluid displays use a material called ferrofluid (typically a mix of oil and iron particles) that is suspended in another medium (such as salt water). Positioning an array of electromagnets behind the fluid container, the ferrofluid can be manipulated to create some basic shapes and motion.

See also:

There are some commercially available physical displays such as displays. There are just a for these in the world. These work by using electromagnets to flip a metal disk that has different colors on each side. They are capable of fairly simple graphics since they are essentially just binary pixels. There have been a few that have figured out how to make them switch fast enough to do full video representations. There is also an audio component to having so many elements mechanically flipping at once, as in of a large 588x216 resolution screen. There is also the potential to develop them to have the discs spin completely 360, which when combined with a variable speed, they would be able to represent grayscale values instead of just on-off.

While these have mostly fallen out of fashion for their limited ability to update, there are a few sources out there for custom Split flap displays, such at . Oat Foundry offers some standard sized Split Flap displays that can be updated with text and images using a basic API. They also offer some custom options with their Picture Flap that allows for custom images to be set on their existing designs and flipped through as well

The company has a mechanical LED solution that combines an LED video wall panel with a robotic moving element that pushes and pulls out from the screen (Also worth nothing that PJ Link is the same name as a projector communication prototcol, but unrelated). There may be other manufacturers

Danny Rozin’s PomPom Mirror —

There are a ton of other variations on this same concept that either use an array of motors or electromagnets. The artist Daniel Rozin has been exploring this concept for years with a ton of different materials — trash, wood, , — etc. There are also pieces that take this concept into a third dimension and use elements to represent limited forms in 3D. The same concept has been applied to a that were used to render low resolution volumes.

These physical displays continue to get more sophisticated as the years go on. This was created out of special spools of thread that had a gradient of colors on them. By knowing the motor’s position, the software was able to know which color was currently on the front of the display, allowing them to render pixelated portraits of user generated photos. called the Megafaces Pavilion was made of thousands of actuated LED elements that were used to render people’s faces for the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

MegaFaces Pavilion for the 2014 Sochi Olympics —

Breakfast also has a number of products like their and that allow for larger electromechnical display capabilities.

Studios like Augmentl combine lighting elements and electromechanical elements in projects like :

As mentioned, these kinds of physical actuated displays are also used in conjunction with projection to add haptics as another layer of interaction and collaboration. The from MIT has been the classic example of this for the last couple years. Some are even working on ways to use electrical signals to simulate textures on touch screens — but a full writeup on the future of haptics and displays is one for another article :)

MIT’s inform Haptic Display —

- Ultrasonic feedback

- haptic feedback on a touchscreen

Fluid Reality: - this is more of a haptic sensing device, but seems like it has potential from a display perspective as well.

Flipdot
few
vendors
installations
this video
Oat Foundry
PJ-Link
penguin dolls
metal balls
suspended on wires
fleet of drones
display
This one
Brixels
Pins
Morph
https://rlfbckr.io/work/interface-i/
inFORM
researchers
Mischer'Traxler's Plural
https://www.ultraleap.com
TanvasTouch
https://www.fluidreality.com/
Source
Source
Source
Source
O by Byeong Sam Jeon uses specialized flip dots to display on a large curved surface
PJ Link Wave Display
Robotic LED billboard for Coke by Radius Displays
Thread Screen from Breakfast
Breakfast's Brixel product
Augmentl's Morph TE
EQ Teaser from wirmachenbunt
https://www.wirmachenbunt.de/work/eqteaser
Mischer'Traxler's Plural
Ferror-V Ferrofluid display