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Show HN: Laser Graffiti (laser.consti.de)
92 points by con 2 days ago | 21 comments


https://graffitiresearchlab.com/blog/projects/laser-tag/#vid...

everything old is new again, and toys will be toys


This is even older (I think), similar idea of building interactive experiences using off-the-shelf lasers: https://web.archive.org/web/20040202205307/http://www.monzy....

Heh I was just about to say, people were doing stuff like this at Parsons/ITP a decade and a half ago, at least...haven't thought about GRL in a while, thanks for the flashback

This is what I immediately thought of as well, I'm just grateful you remembered the name of the project.

An absolute blast from the past, thank you for unlocking the memories of me reading these cool projects way back when!


kids don't think we have memories.

Very cool. I remember seeing a video of some people doing this on a whole building… found it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DKbtTPYZEig&t=30s

same crew as is referenced here too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49513717

Not drawing (yet), about to arrive, but I built a whole projected arcade system on the same vibe, but way before vibecoding… :)

https://s-argame.com


While this is interesting, what I really wanted to see was more 'graffiti' and less 'laser'.

Graffiti, fundamentally, is a defacement of public property as a form of artistic self expression. To that end, why not combine this with a laser engraver instead of a laser pointer?

Imagine hooking this up and then literally carving your graffiti into the side of a brick building. Or burning it into the paint on a metal container car.

Obviously such a thing has the potential for serious bodily harm and could start building or wild fires inadvertently, to say nothing of the energy consumption requirements such a laser engraver would necessitate.

Counterpoint: rule of cool.


You’ll probably burn your retinas with the backscatter

Defacement is not the point of graffiti. It's fundamentally visual, not fundamentally destructive.

Ask the people who have to clean it off.

This is really cool! I wonder if for the drip on neon you could make it start from the bottom of the line to make it a little smoother. And maybe you could try making it translucent for the marker so it matches the marker ink.

Looks cool!

So cool! I can see its application in presentation. Does this support more than 1 laser btw?

I haven't tried, but it should be possible to do so pretty easily.

very cool, I can imagine use-cases like a friends evening playing at home with the projector or even school doing didactic.

love the whole simplicity and the style too.


Consti, this could do well on IG and TikTok.

Love the take on AI


Thanks! I'm not much of a social media person (went so far that I made an Apple shortcut app to launch IG in the messages screen[0], so I can avoid the feed). But maybe I'll try to post something there.

[0] just open the URL instagram://direct-inbox


Cool project

"Tanning invitation"

/Ob Real Genius