I’ve created a 4x4x4 LED cube from a ELV kit. It’s pretty easy to build, but the software for the animations is quite tedious to use.
December 18, 2011
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November 12, 2011
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New Theme for homepage
I’ve decided to update the theme on the homepage to a more minimalistic design. Also, I wanted a responsive design, so I wouldn’t have to use a separate plugin for mobile devices or tablets. I found all of this in the Yoko design by the nice guys of Elmastudio.
July 24, 2011
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PixCompare 3.62 released
I’ve fixed several memory leak bugs, also I moved to SDK 10.7 so it should work nicely on Lion. And, also for Lion, I’ve created a high-res icon for the application.
December 19, 2010
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PixCompare Terminal command
The is the first release of the PixCompare engine for command line use. It takes 2 jpeg files and returns a similarity value.
I have several Axis webcams in use, and sometimes their built-in motion recognition just runs amok – it saves a picture every second even though there is no motion at all. Therefore, before copying the pictures away, I use this command to compare the current picture with the last picture taken. If it is different enough, it gets saved.
Usage: % pixo_cmd picture1.jpg picture2.jpg
It returns a float value 0 or higher, where
- 0.00 – 2.00 very similar or identical
- 2.00 – 10.00 pretty similar
- 10.00 – 20.00 somewhat similar, e.g. some colors are the same
- > 20.00 different
May 29, 2010
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Carousel barrel organ and Blue Mikey iPhone Microphone
I bought a Blue Mikey microphone for iPhone/iPod to do recordings of concerts and other events. To test it out, I went to a local carousel and made a recording of the barrel organ. I used the free Blue Fire software and started recording. I’m pretty impressed by the sound quality. There was quite some wind and a lot of noise from the people around.
I used Audacity the reduce the rumbling noise from the wind – other than that, it’s the original recording. Check it out (mp3)
The next time I’m going to visit the Musikautomaten Museum in Seewen, I’ll also bring this along and do a couple of recordings.
March 28, 2010
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PixCompare 3.6 released
And another new version of PixCompare. Various bug fixes and speed improvements but no major new feature.
February 23, 2010
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New version of PixCompare released
I finally had some time to work on PixCompare. Instead of moving the project to Cocoa, I decided to stick with carbon for now. Carbon is still well supported in Leopard and beyond. I updated all deprecated APIs, converted all Quickdraw code to Quartz, and rewrote the whole printing section. I also fixed a few bugs related to scanning.
February 14, 2010
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Painting of Stüber barrel organ finished
We finally finished painting the Stüber barrel organ. We used the Bauernmalerei style which is popular in Switzerland for all kind of wooden objects.
January 23, 2010
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Reuge 36 tone music box
I found this new music box on ricardo, a local auction platform in Switerland. It’s built by a hobbyist, but uses a Reuge mechanic. It’s a nice wooden box, music stops automatically when both songs are finished. It features 2 Strauss songs, each about 15 seconds.
Listen to songs. (mp3)
These boxes sell for about half to price of an official Reuge box, so quite a bargain. Check out the current listings.
Christmas Music Box with animation
December 13, 2009 by admin | 0 comments
We found this music box in a local antique shop. It’s marked “© Matrix Industries – Made in China”. In the front it says “Family Christmas”. I have no idea where this is from, or how old it is. It features a mechanical music box that also animates 4 figures. If someone has any idea where this could come from, please contact me.
Update: this is a Enesco music box from 1993, called “Decorating Christmas Tree” (#50302) – thanks to PageCreations for the tip!