ASCII ART EASY HOUSE CODE
ASCII ART EASY HOUSE WINDOWS

ASCII ART EASY HOUSE CODE

Fortunately the webapp code is simple enough to be run in basically any browser, but scripting the print job stuff was a bit tedious.

ASCII ART EASY HOUSE WINDOWS

One fun quirk of the printer is that it can only be operated from a Windows machine, so that limitation presented some fun challenges along the way. When a file hits the folder, a print job is kicked off and the booth starts printing. That space bar keycode is being watched by the application, and is used to trigger the snapshot download.įinally, the laptop is watching the Downloads folder for new plaintext files. When the button is pressed it mimics the keycode produced by the space bar. The booth has a big, juicy green button that interfaces with the computer through an Arduino. The booth is built like a shelving unit, with flat shelves for the laptop and printer, and a drawer between to house the button and hide the Arduino and wiring behind it. A set of caster wheels at the bottom makes it easy to transport. Zeke built the booth out of MDF to fit the dimensions of the printer. The footer can be changed for each event. Since the whole document is text, there’s a unique opportunity for messaging: event name, location, time, sponsors, secret codes, ASCII logos, etc. The plaintext file is appended with some nice footer text and downloaded to the user's computer. When the user is ready, the push a button and the image is momentarily paused to visually represent the 'snapshot' effect. The interface shows users what will print in realtime. We use JavaScript to convert the webcam image to ASCII characters based on pixel brightness. We also wanted it to be fun and interactive, so realtime image manipulation was a must. We wanted to hack this text-only printer to produce images, and ASCII was a clear path forward. Dot matrix printers are designed for printing plain text documents. The ASCII art is both aesthetic and functional. We didn’t know how we would do it, but we decided to give it a shot. He asked if we could turn it into a photo booth. They had recently announced a new website and brand look, but they liked the energy and wanted to collaborate on something real.Īle loved the dot matrix printer but wasn’t convinced by the poster generator.

After Zeke's Dublab concept project, he arranged a visit to the Dublab studio to share the work. Once again, friend and frequent collaborator Zeke Wattles approached me with a fun project - we were going to build an ASCII art photo booth. Your browser does not support the video tag.

Ascii art easy house