Datasheet

Play with light

If you're following along, at this point you have the grid8x8_orbits example running on your

NeoMatrix. It looks like this:

It's a really simple example, but there's already a lot going on. There's a huge range in

brightness, from pixels that are just barely on to pixels that are blindingly bright. Colors mix

in the center. By themselves, the LEDs convey some of this, but there's also just an

overwhelming sense of brightness that results from the light being so concentrated in each

pixel.

In a sense, what you're doing now is staring directly into a light source. It's really extreme,

and it's attention-grabbing, but there are a lot of other aesthetic options for a project like

this. The lights could be illuminating an object, or they could be casting shadows, or they

could be projecting a pattern onto a surface.

This is a great time to experiment with different materials, to get a sense for what the LED

light looks like under different conditions. Maybe this will give you ideas about other

materials you'd like to try, or other visual effects you want to design.

First, a simple piece of printer paper. I folded each edge down into a sort of box-lid shape,

so that it's separated from the LEDs by a fraction of an inch. This gap gives the light some

distance to spread out before it hits the paper.