An Ambigram is a word or symbol which looks different when seen from different directions or perspectives. You might have seen ambigrams in the logos of certain companies, or as plot devices in certain books like "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown. In that book, the Illuminati has several ambigrams for the elements of nature.
Some ambigrams are to be viewed upside-down, some are to be seen in a mirror.
All these ambigrams make for cool tattoos or even just a logo to print on your stuff.
Use a mirror to see this right and wrong ambigram reverse
An Ornithopter is a bird shaped flying toy made from sticks and paper and wires. They flap like birds and use the beating of the wings to fly. It is a fun weekend project and cheap to make.
Now, there are battery powered ornithopters using electric motors too, but the first models were all simple ones powered by rubber bands.
Stereograms are pictures that are printed or displayed on 2D surfaces but with a special viewing technique can be visualized in 3D. That includes the technique of combining two images kept side by side to see in 3 D. Here we shall talk about Single Image Stereograms or autostereograms.
The above image has a hidden text in it along with a drawing behind the text. You can view it using the parallel or wall-eyed viewing method.
Here is a website which will help you to practice that : http://www.vision3d.com/3views.html
They have various tips and tricks for first timers to get used to parallel-viewing and cross-eyed viewing. Once you get the hang of it once, it should come easily. Like riding a bicycle.
There are also Random Dot Stereograms, Animated Stereograms, ASCII stereograms, and more.
There's also a type of 3D picture called wigglegrams.
This should be easy - a dog made of blocks - like a minecraft dog
Moire animations, also known as slit animations or Kinegrams are Animations that can be printed on paper.
Haven't seen them ? Have a look at this video :
Do you want to make the same ?
It is very simple.
You will need :
A printer (Inkjet or laser)
Transparent sheet (If you don't have one lying around, get it from a stationary store)
Download the files and print
Below are links to the images found in this video so you can print them out and try it yourself. You'll have to print the template onto a transparency. If you have an ink jet printer you have to use a special transparency made specifically for ink jet printers. Laser print works fine with all transparent sheets. When you print the images and the template make sure to print them all at the same size if any of the sizes change the effect will not work.
How to easily create your own animated optical illusions, using the program "Animated Illusion Creator". Download version 2.0 here: http://www.mediafire.com/?enbgj7kquxh... If you want to see more examples of it and download some animations to get started, I recommend that you watch this: http://youtu.be/vJpMZ0R89kU
Here is a Kinegram based furniture called Magic Carp-pet
If you have a laptop with an RGB out and s-video out, you would have thought it was impossible to get a TV out to connect it to a normal Large TV. It would be very cool to get the video on a TV screen instead of watching movies on your laptop's tiny 14 inch screen.
S-video to Composite RCA video cable on Amazon
How do I get my laptop's video on a normal TV (which has only a composite video in) which does not have any fancy S-video or RGB input ?
Very, very simple.
Or you could make it yourself.
This circuit I am showing here has only one Capacitor - but the circuit is absolutely useful.
Materials required : wires, capacitor, s-video pin and coaxial composite video pin (most of this can be salvaged from old wires and cables lying around the house)
1 Y ground
2 C ground
3 Y (luminance+sync)
4 C (crominance)
Or, you can buy this from an electronics shop for less than a dollar.
This simple adapter can be used to convert Y/C video (S-video) to a composite video. This adapter is useful in cases where your video output device has only S-video output but your signal source accepts only composite video input. This circuit works with both PAL and NTSC video standards.
Y-ground——————+
+———- RCA/composite ground
C-ground——————+
Y————————-+
+——— RCA/composite video
C————||———–+
470pF
This circuit can be quite easily i inside a the S-video connector case if a physically small size 470 pF (ceramic) capacitor is used. Larger capacitor values will also work, but cause picture to become “softer”. The voltage rating of capacitor can be 10V or more.
This circuit works in practice quite well even though the circuit operation is not ideal. This means that impedances and signal levels not matched exactly right, but near enough to work acceptably. The picture quality you get from this circuit is is good, but not as good as with best possible composite video output circuitry.
Can I use different capacitor values ?
The circuit diagram lists the capacitor value 470 pF. Somewhat different capacitor values would also work. Practically all capacitor values form around 400 pF to around 10 nF should work somehow acceptably.
Can I buy ready made adapters like this ?
I don't have ready made circuits for sale. Ready made circuits are nowadays avaialble at video/hifi shops and form computer shops quite cheaply nowadays (3-10 Euros/Dollars). For example www.svideo2rca.com has this kind of devices for sale on-line.
Are there ways to improve S-video to composite video conversion ?
Some ICs that do S-video to composite conversion internally use luma trap to eliminate cross color artifacts. With a properly designed luma trap, the conversion works somewhat vetter than with my simple circuit. One IC that implements luma trap is AD725 from Analog Devices. The IC data sheet has information on luma trap design. When luma trap is used, the luma trap needs to match the video standard (PAL and NTSC) being used. For a filter that will work for both PAL and NTSC a means is required to switch the tuning of the filter between the two subcarrier frequencies.
My simple circuit described above works for all video standards without modifications. I have not designed any circuit that used this luma trap method myself and I have no plans to add this to my circuit.
What if my PC graphics card has a 7-pin S-video connector instead of 4-pin ?
The four pin S-video connector as shown above is the standard connector for carrying S-video. Those seven pin connectors seen on some PC graphics cards are non-standard connectors for carrying S-video. The use of the pins on those seven pin connectors is not standardized and can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. (For some strange reasons some manufacturers in PC industry just keep constanly breaking the industry standars and create lots of confuzion to users when doing so).
Generally the four pins on those 7-pin connectors on the same places as the standard four pin S-video connector have practcly always the same fuctionality as those pins in S-video connector. The other three pins can have then some extra signals which are not part of S-video (usually some pins of those carry composite video and some control signals, but the use of those three extra pins vary quite much). So if you encounter 7 pin connector for S-video, then forget the three center pins... just use the four on the standard positions. The circuit shoudl work with those connectors as well.
I am using the adapter ans still do not get colors. What is wrong ?
This adapter is designed to convert S-video signals to composite video. And it has proven to work well on this. This circuit cannot solve other possible incompatibility issues that you might have. A typical problem that causes black and white video instead of color is incomatible video standards on the signal source and the receiver. If your video signal source (for example PC video card TV output) puts out NTSC video but your TV is designed to handle only PAL standard you get usually black and white image, and with some devices video signal does not sync at all. PAL signal to NTSC TV does not work either. One very common problem with computers that have TV putput is that the default output video standard is not right for your TV. If you get problems with computer TV output, configure your video output to right standard that your TV supports and try again. The exact details how o do this configuration varies between different computers and graphics cards. Consult your computer user's manual and other documentation for exact details.
Can the circuit used in other way ?
If you try to connect the circuit in opposite way so that you have a composite video signal which yoiu want to feed to S-video input then you might wonder would this circuit work also in that way. The answer is that the circuit sort of work also in this way. If you connect a comoisute video source to a S-video input of your TV using this circuit, you will get a full color picture on your TV screen. The downside of this is that the picture quality will be worse than if you were using the real composite vidoe input of your TV. The reason for this is that after the circuit the color information is still in the brighness signal, you you see some interference on the screen caused by color subcarrier which gets to the screen. This all means that you can use this circuit as last change in situations where you don't have a composite video input. The picture quality is degraded, but propably still usable for some not so demanding applications. A real well working solution would be much more complicated than this circuit (there are some commercial adapters based on two filters, band-pass and subcarrier frequency for C and color subcarrier band-stop on Y line). Please note that this kind of circuits are always video standard specific, meanign you need a different circuit for PAL and NTSC video standards. You can find one picture of the filter responsenses for NTSC system at http://www.epanorama.net/counter.php?url=http://www.smarthome.com/images/8290dgm.gif (filters out colro signal around 3.58 MHz frequency from Y component). The idea is the same for PAL, but the frequency here must be 4.43 MHz. There are both passive and active devices available to do this conversion.
Here are some links to some products:
Elektro Electronics magazine has published an active Video to S-VHS Converter circuit at their September 2001 issue. Due copyright reasons I can't publish the circuit here. You can find some information on the circuit at the magazine web page and you can even buy a copy of that article. This circuit design is designed for PAL video. I have tested this circuit and it works if you want go go from composite video to S-video.
Credits to Tom Tomi Engdahl <Tomi.Engdahl@iki.fi> - thanks for the circuit man, saved me a bunch of money and besides, none of the electronics shops nearby even knew what s-video was !!!
toys are very well loved by kids everywhere and never go out of fashion.
