A special installment of the Weekly WYSIWYG posts - I posted an article yesterday about Marcus Wuebker’s lighting design and programming for the McNamara Tunnel in Detroit’s Airport.  I just got an email from Gil Densham from Cast Lighting - that contained the renderings from the project, which was done in WYSIWYG!  Thanks Gil!  Check these out:

Have you ever been through “The Tunnel” at the Detroit Metro Airport?  The McNamara Terminal at the Detroit Metro Airport has a 27 minute lighting masterpiece composed to a soundtrack - it provides an excellent and awesome spectacle of LED fury for those passing through.

Marcus Wuebker, an old friend and fellow lighting designer from Mills-James, Inc in Columbus, OH was the LD.  I asked him to write a few words about the tunnel, which he so graciously did (thanks, Marcus!), and I’ve posted the article below.  I hope you enjoy, as Marcus is a talented designer.

The McNamara Terminal at the Detroit Metro Airport has a passenger tunnel that connects two concourses beneath the tarmac. Curved glass panels with abstract art sand blasted into the back create a mural on both sides that runs the entire length of the tunnel. Translucent material completes the curve of the glass and visually connects the two sides.

The Smith Group is the Architect of record for that part of the airport and is responsible for the initial design. They created the space and specified the type and number of LED fixtures to artfully light it for a number of reasons including low maintenance and low heat output. Northwest Airlines then hired Mills/James Productions to evaluate the existing design and create a show for their passengers.

The Smith Group’s concept was to light the back wall from above with 6 rows of Color Kinetics iCove 12” fixtures. This produced an interesting yet subtle look as the light reflected off the wall through the glass. After spending some time with the mock up at the Fox Fire Glass, I decided the best way to light the glass was to focus the iCoves directly at the glass and break each glass panel into 3 separately controllable areas vertically. I programmed a thunderstorm rolling in complete with some lightning strikes and when the glass artist, Laurel Fyfe, saw it her eyes lit up. It took her about a half a second to realize how this approach would work in the tunnel with 135 glass panels on each side. She was so excited the next 10 panels she carved had shapes that could easily be describes as lighting bolts, rain drops, and clouds.

Back in Columbus, the composer, Victor Alexeeff, and I started discussing ideas for the show. I suggested a rainstorm and a sunrise/sunset themed piece. Victor had an idea for a space like piece that moved into the chaotic world of the infinitely small. Victor would write a piece, give it to me and I would program to it in WYSIWYG. After showing Victor what I could do with what he gave me, he would get excited and go back to his studio and create stuff with music and sound effects just so I could put a cool lighting effect to it like a comet that shot all the way through the tunnel. My favorite part of the show is when two small “fireballs” come at you from one and of the tunnel, and then suddenly the entire tunnel is enveloped in fire from the other end. All of these ideas came down to two sections that totaled 27 minutes, Ethereal and Nature.

The tunnel was programmed and runs today off of two Hog II PC’s. There are 8100 12” iCove Fixtures lighting the glass panels and 222 12” Color Blast lighting the ceiling and 12 48” Color Blaze in each rotunda all from Color Kinetics. Pathport Ethernet nodes distribute DMX throughout the tunnel.

I would like to thank Northwest Airlines and Mills/James Productions for the opportunity, as well as the other Artists that make this a one of a kind project.

Written by Marcus Wuebker

Make Mag has an article about Marieke Staps’ “Soil Lamp,” which is an LED fixture that runs on mud and gets energy for illumination from the microbiotics in the soil.

What?

Seriously.  Check it out.  It’s a cool concept - an LED lamp that thinks it’s a plant!

My good friend Tina Winslow of the DFW Modern Homes blog sent me this link - which was completely in French - about a designer named Ben Rousseau.  The first image - the table with the glowing poly underneath - was striking to me, and after I looked up his name I discovered a whole bunch of interior LED work.  Check out Ben’s portfolio site, there’s some beautiful work there.

Tina’s blog rocks, by the way.  Interior Design and craftsman accessories get a lot of great attention there.

In case you’re dying to know what the french site says about Ben Rousseau…

Very beautiful style by the architect and originator 3D Ben Rousseau, specialist in pieces of furniture overmeasure and products in interior. Years of experiment in production and a selection of original furniture to discover in the continuation.

Here’s the french page, translated.

CleanTechnica has a post about an “ultracapacitor” flashlight that takes 90 seconds to charge for 90 minutes of on time - and can charge fully once a day for 135 years.  5.11 Tactical’s Light for Life runs about $169.9.  From the CleanTechnica article:

According to the company, the flashlight can perform 50,000 charge/discharge cycles with no degradation of quality— that’s one charge a day for over 135 years. And if that isn’t impressive enough, it can go from being dead to fully charged in 90 seconds. The flashlight provides 90 minutes of light per charge.

The 16 oz. Light for Life has no replaceable parts, and requires zero maintenance. At $169.99, it’s somewhat of a bargain considering it may be the last flashlight you ever buy.

Have you heard of or seen the videos of the new “plasma” light sources that are out there?  People are talking about LIFI lamps and sources, and how many lumens per watt can be had with these new jewels.  Check out this video:

LIFI:  “Light Fidelity.”  LIFI lamps do not use a series of electrodes to attach to a filament to bring the lamp to a point where the source emits light.  Instead, a RF source is focused and pointed at a little column in the lamp, the plasma column, which then makes the lamp emit an intense, high output light.  We’re talking about having a little tiny source that can output 20K lumens.  The operating costs are significantly lower because of the technology that “plasmafies” the lamp itself, which requires a lot less electricity to operate the RF generator.

What about color rendering?  How white is the LIFI source?

LUXIM, the company who is pioneering this technology, has the following chart on their website:

Look at that first figure - 120 lumens per watt.  CRI of 80 (96 on the next model up), and 30,000 hours of operating life.  If you know about CRI and color rendering, you know that 100 is the best score, referring to a black-body radiator.  The STA-40-02 model renders at 96.

Luxim also makes LIFI lamps for entertainment purposes - one of their lamps runs at 7500°K, the other at 5600°K - both have a CRI of above 91, and both have 20,000 hours of life.  These lamps operate under 10A and run on around 28V - heat is lower, energy consumption is lower, which allows this source to be jammed into the back of a moving head without worry of overtemp.  According to Luxim, these lamps are also vibration resistant and rugged - all solid state components.

Do you have any experience with these sources?  Luxim people, do you read my blog?  Please post in the comments.

Isle of Man

I just read an article at PLSN about the big ol’ castle at the Isle of Man in England.  For a fund raising event for Breast Cancer Awareness,  Event Lighting Services lit up the outside of the castle in pink.

As a symbol of breast cancer support and awareness, the Falcon Cliff Castle on this British isle, dubbed the “Isle of Woman” for a recent fund-raising event, was washed in pink hues cast by Chauvet COLORado LED light fixtures. Part of “In the Pink Day,” the architectural lighting installation helped mark the end of a year-long fundraising drive that raised $55,000.

The Chauvet lights were selected because of their “vivid colors and spectacular brightness,” said Justin McMullin, owner of Event Lighting Services (ELS), a stage and event lighting rental company based on the island, which donated the lighting. “Because of this we only had to use six fixtures in all to light up such a large building,” McMullin said.

ELS used four Chauvet COLORado 1 wash lights and two COLORado 3 bank systems, both designed for outdoor use with an IP rating of 66. The models offer full RGB color mixing, which allowed for occasional changes in hues of the castle’s façade throughout the event.

Falcon Cliff, more than 150 years old, originally served as a residence for a banker. It later became a hotel and during the late 1880s, a large dance hall was added. Shuttered in the 1990s, the landmark building was restored and now serves as an office complex.

The COLORado LED fixture line is something from Chauvet that has been getting a lot of popularity.  A friend of mine working for Michael Riotto Design in NYC was telling me at LDI this year that a lot of installations are getting these fixtures lately.  They’re bright!

My wife and I bought a new DSLR a few weeks ago, and I took it on my trip to LDI.  I’m going to try to post one or two of these a day, and I have about 30 groups of photos of different booths and such - LDI 2008 was a great time.  I got to meet Mike Zinman of The Zinman Co, I got to hang out with old friends, and I saw a heckuva lot of great technology.  There’s some amazing LED technology out right now by companies like iLight and Traxon.  Don’t worry, I have pictures of their stuff too!

Here’s some general LDI images - if you were there, leave a comment!  I bet we passed right by each other eleventy times.

The Arri booth and the Strong booth to the right - that’s either Barco or Lasernet to the left (the green).

The “LDI guy.”

Vectorworks, and *I think* the back of Clay Paky’s booth.

AC Lighting’s area.  Cool LED CYC fixtures.  More on that later.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

LEDs Mag had a product article on these interesting little PAR16 LED lamps - They’re three 1W high power LED sources - these are supposed to be direct replacements for incandescent medium screw (that’s E26 Edison for you geeks out there, represent) base R lamps.  Looks pretty cool - these are 20° beam spread.

Check out the article.  Here’s the LEDtronics product site.

There is talk right now of technology that could revolutionize the way wireless communication is utilized - imagine using flashing light to communicate with devices, not unlike the way that IR technology is used with devices, or light pipe technology is used in recording.  Boston University’s College of Engineering is launching a program with help from an NSF grant to get this kind of technology kicking.  From the article at Cellular News:

“Imagine if your computer, iPhone, TV, radio and thermostat could all communicate with you when you walked in a room just by flipping the wall light switch and without the usual cluster of wires,” said BU Engineering Professor Thomas Little. “This could be done with an LED-based communications network that also provides light - all over existing power lines with low power consumption, high reliability and no electromagnetic interference. Ultimately, the system is expected to be applicable from existing illumination devices, like swapping light bulbs for LEDs.”

As far as green technology goes, this is an amazing prospect - I am interested to see what wavelengths they decide to exhaust first, and what the rates of transmission would be.

Along with communication technology, the article mentions automobile safety:

“This technology has many implications for automobile safety,” Little said. “Brake lights already use LEDs, so it’s not a stretch to outfit an automobile with a sensor that detects the brake lights of the car in front of it and either alerts an inattentive driver or actively slows the car.”