| Borg Cube Panel Artwork |
aka Bob is assimilated by his Borg Cube... |
It's April, and I have now got a little better idea of how the BorgCube Panel will look and what it will use for technology. Basically, I am trying to identify what elements I can put on it to make it "live" instead of just static art. Here's what I have so far:
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Panel Label
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Function
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Mains
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The power switch for the computer. This will be a touch sensitive momentary contact switch. When the computer is turned off, this will be the only illuminated portion of the panel, and will be lit by a red LED. When we turn the system on, the panel backlighting is triggered and the illumination of this switch changes to a blue LED. |
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Warp Core Eject
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You only press this one in dire emergency! Another touch sensitive momentary switch connected to the reset line. Illumination here is via red LED to differentiate it from the nearby Mains switch. Note: I need to think of some clever way to protect it. Perhaps I need an "Arm Core Eject" button that closes a guard relay prior to making the "Eject" button live. |
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Dilithium Coolant
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This control is basically a digital fan bus control. It consists of a vertical LED bargraph with an "Up Arrow" button at the top and a "Down Arrow" button at the bottom. The buttons are touch sensitive momentary contact connected to a DS1802 digital potentiometer. The potentiometer controls an LM317 voltage regulator, allowing us to continuously vary the voltage to the system's cooling fans. Ideally, we will arrange for the system to "remember" its last fan setting. We probably want to light the LED bargraph segments with individual LEDs ranging in color from red (lowest hottest speed) to yellow (medium) to blue (fastest coolest speed). We can create individually lit chambers for with appropriate LED colors for the segments. There will be a total of 10 segments. Line art will connect the coolant control to a pictorial diagram of the water cooling system constructed of photorealistic icons laid out in schematic format. |
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System Status
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The System Status display will consist of a VFD display behind the panel, with a tinted rectangle for it to peek through. It will display active temperatures of various components such as the CPU, inside case, and liquid coolant temperatures. Line art will connect these various temps to pictures of the appropriate internal component associated with the temperatures. |
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Warp Flux
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The Warp Flux indicator will be tied to hard disk activity. The goal is to create a peaking VU meter type display with an LED bargraph. The intensity of the graph will correspond to the amount of disk activity. |
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Data Link
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This box will light up with LAN activity. |
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Sensor Array
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The sensor array will be a passive audio spectrum analyzer that presents a bargraph display and reacts to sounds in the room. |
I have begun creating the artwork for the transparency. An artist friend recommends psprint.com to create the transparency, and assures me they can take a 600 dpi image and do the right thing with it. I'll be using JASC PaintShop Pro to create the art. At 600 dpi, the files are apt to be rather large. I'm going to go slow, and save many intermediate versions. At first I just want to create a black and white image. A careful examination of the art style of the LCARS panel reveals a lot of color and gradient washes will be needed to finish it. For now, I'm basically just trying to get the geometry right for the overall look.
Lots of color and gradient washes!
That geometry basically consists of the curving sweeps that divide up the various parts of the panel. Proper use of rectangles and circles will be needed. I plan to construct some corner bitmaps that I can scale up or down and connect with rectangles. I've done some font experimentation and Bold Arial Narrow is a good approximation for the typography.
Here is the current latest draft of the art:
I've made it big, so I can look at all the flaws. I did mean this to be draft. When I get the draft good enough, I will completely recreate the art at 600 dpi. I think this gives a flavor of what I'm trying to accomplish. Refer back to the table at the top of this web page to see what everything does. Note that the VFD is merely representative, i.e. faked. The real one will display CPU clock speed, CPU temp, and reservoir temp, with something else at top. Remember, actual size for this thing will be about 14" x 14".
The row of blue dots will be a chase-lightey kinda thing using blue LEDs, where the lit LED ping pongs back and forth under the images to simulate a scanning kind of thing.
Man, this art has been a bear to produce 'cause I ain't no artist!