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Oculepsy lives! Oculepsy is an active light sculpture containing 128 sets of individually-controlled red, green, blue, and white LEDs. Its LEDs are arranged in a vertical array, with each set of 4 LEDs facing outward to project light 360 degrees around the device. It is controlled by a simple C program running on a PC, connected via parallel port. The interface can send up to 4000 "columns" of data to the device per second. Such a high refresh rate is needed to produce detailed images and text without an obvious "flickering" effect. Human vision has a property called Persistence of Vision, where light that hits a part of the retina for a very short time "stays on" in the mind for much longer. Oculepsy exploits this property to "draw" simple images and patterns in mid-air, when the device is in the viewer's field of view and the viewer rapidly shifts their eyes horizontally (e.g. left to right and back again.) It essentially leaves successive vertical strips of an image on the retina, one column at a time. The following images were made by turning the camera on an axis parallel to the display while its shutter was open. The effect is much more profound when experienced in person.
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