Five students of the University of Twente have developed a laser wall printer. The laserwriter is a portable device that can burn images and text onto various surfaces from a distance of two metres. High Tech Graffiti!
The five students of Electrical Engineering developed the wall printer as part of their second year final project. The laserwriter can be used for countless applications, from printing lettering on walls to decorating a living room wall to printing graffiti on public amenities. The original idea for the laserwriter was conceived by Dr Anne-Johan Annema, one of the project supervisors. The students developed the concept and built a prototype.
Many Dutch people have a laser printer at home. These printers are ideal for printing in A4 format, but if larger formats are wanted then the printer will need to be scaled up as well. To print a poster you need a printer that is at least as wide as the poster. So why not print the poster straight onto the wall? The laserwriter can. Just like a normal laser printer, the device is controlled by a computer. The image in the computer is scanned pixel by pixel, and these pixels are then burned onto the wall by the laser.
Twitter
One disadvantage of the prototype is that it takes a relatively long time to burn a large image onto a wall. But the students have found a solution for this too: impatient users can follow the print process via a live webcam stream! Users are also kept informed of progress via Twitter. Followers will receive a tweet when printing starts and another when the image is completed. Printing can also be followed live of course, but only with a pair of good quality laser goggles.
