I bought the FinePix W1 camera from a shop in Kumamoto the other day, after seeing and playing with the demo unit it was hard not to buy it..

So I got it back to the hostel and started the unboxing process..

They pack an example print into the box, at some point they plan to run a print service but I dont think its working yet. The 3d effect on the photo isnt bad, the kids definitely stick out from the background. They probably could have used a better photo though

The usual bags of stuff, USB cable, power adaptor, manuals, CD and the camera of course The manual is entirely in japanese but its pretty easy to get the main points out of it.

And heres the camera itself, its quite a bit larger than a normal camera and much heavier. Keeping it in my pocket with my phone is causing problems. The front cover is a bit of a fingerprint magnets too..

Firing the camera up starts the setup process, it asks for your language – luckily in english – and time information. What you cant see in the photo below is that the blue highlight stands out from the rest of the screen

Its an effect used in all the menus too, although it can be turned off.

Taking photos with it takes a little practice, when on autofocus you need to keep the subject about 1-2m away otherwise the two images are too far apart for the 3d effect to work.

For close up shots you have to set the camera to “individual shutter” mode, it lets you take a pic with the left sensor, then move the camera a little and take another. It works really well if you have a tripod, its possible to get some good macro shots (10cm or so range) this way. I’ll post an example further down (in JPG format and MPO format in case anyone has access to a 3d screen…)

For the techy side of things

This camera uses a USB connection but in PTP mode rather than mass storage, so you cant just plug and go if you have a mac.. However iPhoto detects the camera but will only let you capture JPG files from the camera. It totally ignores all MPO files on there.

There is a workaround, if you have a Mac get macports installed and install:

• GPhoto2
• libgphoto2

You have to screw with your path settings in your terminal to get ports to work correctly but after that gphoto2 detects the camera and lets you view the file structure. You can dump all the photos using gphoto2 -L and it saves all images and videos.

Check this link for generic instructions on using gphoto2 on OS X

As far as I can tell the MPO file format is just two JPG files concatenated, in fact when you use quickview in Leopard it shows one frame of the image (but preview.app wont bother loading it at all). I’m guessint it loads the first JPG then ignores all data after the end markers.

I’m trying to knock up a Python script to split the files, further down the line I want to be able to combine the files again so I can create my own 3D stuff and port it to the camera

Conclusion

Wicked little toy I just hope Fujifilm sort out the printing process so I can get some photos out IRL

A while back I bought some Thermochromic paper to experiment with, I saw a clock on a blog that used this in conjunction with nichrome wire to produce a flexible, flat, slow-changing display. The nichrome wire I have is a pain in the arse to work with, its coiled on a spool and retains it curve when cut off for use, making a 7 segment display damn near impossible.
The plan I’ve got is to make a “pre-birthday” card, something that you open 3-4 days before your birthday and over the course of those days an image slowly starts to appear. The obvious design for this is a plant, with each part of the stem revealing slowly until a full grown plant is “grown”. I want to keep it as flat as possible I’m using tin-foil to wire it all:

I’ve pritt-sticked a layer of foil down and then cut the traces with a sharp craft knife, luckily pritt stick is crap and doesnt hold the foil on too well so peeling off the unneeded parts is easy.

The card isnt complete yet, I need to find a way to control it all, I’ve ordered some AVR thingies which are probably stupidly overpowered for this task but hey, theyre a quid each :p As easy as this is to interface with an Arduino its a little oversized for this application :p

After this one I might try to build a simple grid/pixel array like this. Complexity FTW!

Its written in Python using PyS60, oddly no extra modules are needed yet. The app connects to the gps device and attempts to read the data off. If it finds some position information it then pushes it to a PHP app on my webserver, this in turn grabs the map, generates the FBML then stuffs it onto facebook. All in all its working a treat.

1 problem though, the stupid designers of the gps device have put an “auto power off” feature on, if the device doesnt detect a gps signal or BT connection it pwoers off. Thats rather annoying as I dont want my phone keeping a BT connection alive all day (it’ll kill the battery!.I’m hoping that simply tapping the power button will keep it alive, if thats the case then I’ll hack an optoisolator and 555 timer circuit to keep pushing it

I may even publish the map location to this blog in a sidebar of sorts.

So far I’ve managed to write a desktop app that updates my status from a python script.

Another idea I’m working on is automatic facebook updates, for example I can leave bluetooth switched on my phone and have my server pick up when I’m in range. If I am (and wasnt) then set my facebook status to “has just arrived at home”, or even if it detects that I’m on the wordpress admin page have it set my status to “blogging”. I’ve started work on a prioritising system as well, so that some updates dont override others.

Further on from this I’d love to have my GPS coords (taken from the phone) uploaded to facebook every half hour or so. Theres no point at all other than pure geekiness hey, thats what its all about!

I’ve cut a windows in the side for the USB port of the arduino and managed to cram it all in the case with no problem. I did manage to cut my finger in the process though

At the moment its covering the dining room table in bits, I’ve started soldering the ISD side of things to stripboard and cut bits of casing out to fit that in too. Its not there yet but coming along nicely:)

No sign of the lasers yet

Off I go to order 2 new ones AND the driver kits. I aint breaking the next one :p

Firstly I cocked up and switched the MISO and MOSI lines :p my bad.

Secondly I couldnt get it to passthrough sound from its input directly to output (for monitoring levels). Solved that by programming the analogue path registers. This is especially fun as the SPI data on the ISD chips are LSB and I didnt realise.

Finally got it to pass through and (jeeez!) record something, it now seems to playback too. Its a P.I.T.A. to playback though. You have to record the sounds to the chip then find out the start and end addresses in memory that contain the data. You then push that to the device to have it play. Ugh.

Next task is to integrate this with the Simon game I’ve written and try to get it off the protoboard and onto something more permanent.

Still waiting for the actual Simon game though

Just recently I came across this: Laserline, its an audio controlled laser scanner application. You attach mirrors to two speakers (one for x-axis and one for y) and shine a laser at it.

I have to build this!! I’ve ordered a Sony 16x diode for the laser part, its capable of burning and cutting dark paper/plastic, so should have some decent range to it :p

My aim is to write rude words on clouds :p

And great, two workmen have just arrived outside and are setting up over the comms box in the floor. Guess this is bye-bye-broadband :p

As of 9:45 this evening, the memory on the first chip is filled with eels

The next stage is to control it with the SPI bus from the arduino, shouldnt be too bad

Oh yeah, I’ve also gone on a domain registering bender – I now own http://upthear.se Thanks to Domain Hacks for that

Also ordered myself a 16x DVD burner laser module, plan to do some computer controlled laser cutting with it (or just piss cats off from miles away)