1,920 LEDs in a 30” diameter ball


               Tangle is a 30” diameter spheroid with 8 LED strips tangled across its surface and throughout its interior. Each LED is controller by a computer program, displaying various kinds of patterns.

Some patterns simply send color patterns down each strip, celebrating their tangled-ness. Others make use of a set of map files that allow simple images to be depicted, even though the 1,920 LEDs are randomly positioned.

The software generates these map files by controlling the LEDs while looking at the entire piece with the iPad’s camera. It turns on each LED one at a time, noting where in the current 2D perspective each LED lies. Here's a video of this process:  https://youtu.be/I5xe1rhLMAA

16 different map files were created for Tangle so that images could be made to rotate around the vertical axis, by animating from one map to the next.

The computer program that controls the piece is LED Lab an iPad app that allows any image or video file to be used in creating animations. (City/country-specific imagery can be integrated into the performance.) This app is available on the Apple iTunes Store.