Project:TreeOfScreens

What

A meta-art instalation at the London Hackspace. It is an artpiece composed of other artpieces contributed by the community.

A sort of a tree made of VESA mount arms with screens on them. There is a slight outwards taper to the arrangement toward the top.

Mechanics

The VESA bracket/screen interface uses M4x10mm bolts, the hex socket at the ends of the arms for adjusting the angle needs a 7mm hex key.

The upright stem is strapped to the building pillar with brackets. This is a work-around, as the landlords agreement would not allow drilling large enough holes in the floor or ceiling.

Do not tamper with the support brackets or height positions of the VESA arms. The arms use shims to fit the stem and they may fall out if adjusted.

The top two sets of arms have been specially modified for extra reach, meaning their weight limit is extremely low. Currently being considered for VESA-mount LED lights or as a position to hang "vines" from.

Why

Art. (Don't question the art).

Who

User:Sci, User:JasperWallace, User:Jay and you as well!

Computers

• Equipment/Flowers
• Equipment/Tanenbaum

Suggested content for screens

• HAL 9000/Matrix/Flying toaster screensavers (or any other vintage screen savers)
• Feeds from the space's IRC and Twitter [1] channels
• Waterfall visualisation of amateur radio bands (via SDR) - see Group:Amateur_Radio
• https://github.com/klange/nyancat
• http://www.halproject.com/ - needs flash player, may be possible to hack it to work under linux - works with gnash, a bit lame tho (splash screen advertising the full version).
• Get Gpredict (http://gpredict.oz9aec.net/) running to show ISS/satellite passes over London
• http://www.midnightplanets.com/web/MSL/latestImages.html <-- good starting point for Mars stuff
• http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/mars24/
• http://lrostk.gsfc.nasa.gov/preview.cgi (works with vlc with http://lrostk.gsfc.nasa.gov:8080/stream.mjpg )
• http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/
• http://spacestationlive.nasa.gov/timeline/ might have to scrape.
• http://www.ustream.tv/channel/iss-hdev-payload
• Live video effects (non-recording camera feedback)
• https://github.com/bryanwoods/kitty
• 
• https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html
• http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
• 
• 
• http://radek.io/2015/06/29/catpix/
• https://github.com/busyloop/lolcat
• cowsay
• ... add your own here!

Non-screen content

Anything lightweight and VESA-mount is permissable. Possible examples include;

• Dioramas
• Artwork

Status

Work in progress.

Applications to drive existing contributed screens are welcome.

Multi-head PCs

To drive multiple syncronised feeds to several screens at once.

Looking on ebay the NVS280 is one choice of PCI card, the NVS400 gives 4 outputs and may be more cost effective. Splitter cables are an issue tho (these are DMS-59 splitters, the connector on the card is NOT DVI tho it looks a lot like it) :/

Positions

Here is a key to whose work is displayed in what position, and what positions are free to use.

Pos.	Left side	Right side
1	Reserved Do not use	Reserved Do not use
2	Dell E173FPc 1280 x 1024, VGA	Dell E176FPm 1280 x 1024, VGA
3	Dell E176FPc 1280 x 1024, VGA	Dell 1708FPf 1280 x 1024, DVI & VGA
4	Dell E170FPf 1024 x 768, DVI & VGA	Compaq LCD "Dead Pixels" by Sci
5	Dell E170FPb 1280 x 1024, DVI & VGA, USB pwr	Dell 1908FPc 1280 x 1024, DVI & VGA
6	NEC 2070VX-BK 1600 x 1200, DVI & VGA	Dell 1708FPf 1280 x 1024, DVI & VGA ISS Display
7	Dell E173FPf 1280 x 1024, VGA	Dell 1901FP 1280 x 1024, DVI & VGA
8	Dell 1901FP 1280 x 1024, DVI & VGA	CTX S521A 1024 x 768, VGA
9	Philips 15054 1024 x 768, VGA	Philips 180B2 1280 x 1024, VGA
10	Acer AL1716 1280 x 1024, DVI & VGA	HP L1906 1280 x 1024, VGA
11	Dell 1905FP 1280 x 1024, DVI & VGA	Dell 1708FPf 1280 x 1024, DVI & VGA
12	Unoccupied	Dell E15FPp 1024x768, VGA

Flush or recessed VESA bracket

Pos.	Left side	Right side
1	n/a	n/a
2	r	r
3	r	r
4	r	f / n/a
5	r	r
6	f	r
7	r	r
8	r	f
9	f	f
10	f	r
11	r	f
12	n/a	f

Totals: 13 recessed, 7 flush

Network

There is a 2 port network socket box near the floor on the pillar, it's not attached to the pillar cos it clashes with the lower pillar bracket, one port is working, the other is used for the switch on the shelf.

There is an 8 port switch on the pc half way up the tree, 4 ports are free and 1 more is probably usable.

Potentially useful Links

• https://github.com/tehmaze/edid
• https://github.com/sewar/edid.tv/tree/master/edid_parser