Tiny drones outfitted with a miniature arm that holds ink-soaked sponge may soon be able to create huge paintings and outdoor murals, thanks to a new software developed by scientists.
Paul Kry from the McGill University in Canada and his students teamed up to programme tiny drones to create dot drawings - an artistic technique known as stippling.
Programming the aerial robots to apply each payload of ink accurately and efficiently requires complex algorithms to plan flight paths and adjust for positioning errors, researchers said.
Even very slight air currents can toss the featherweight drones off course.
The drones, which are small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, are outfitted with a miniature arm that holds a bit of ink-soaked sponge.
As they hover near the surface to be painted, internal sensors and a motion capture system help position them to dab the ink in just the right places.
So far, the flying robots have rendered - on paper - portraits of Alan Turing, Grace Kelly and Che Guevara, among others. Each drawing is composed of a few hundred to a few thousand black dots of varying sizes.
Eventually, larger drones could be deployed to paint murals on hard-to-reach outdoor surfaces, including curved or irregular facades, Kry said.
NFTs: Why digital art has such a massive carbon footprint
How much would you be willing to pay for a one-of-a-kind work of art? For some collectors, the limit lies somewhere in the region of hundreds of millions of dollars. What about a work of art that has no tangible form, and exists only as a digital token that's no more "real" than a JPEG file? Welcome to the strange world of crypto art collectibles, also known as NFTs.
Like Bitcoin, NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are cryptocurrencies. But whereas individual bitcoins all have the same value, NFTs are more like baseball cards. Each token has a different value and they can't be used to buy things. They exist on your computer as digital representations of artworks, songs, films and games, among other things.
When you buy an NFT, you're buying a unique certificate of ownership, which is locked away on an immutable distributed database known as a blockchain. The creator of the artwork generally retains the copyright and in most cases, you own little more than bragging rights. Creators are also likely to pass thecosts for creating your NFT files(or "minting" them) on to you (around US$100 as I write this).
Most of the time, what you'll also be responsible for is an enormous carbon footprint.
Because they depend on a blockchain, NFTs use a lot of energy. Most creators still useEthereum, a blockchain secured using a similar proof-of-work system to Bitcoin. This involves an energy-intensive computer function called mining. Specialist mining computers take turns guessing the combination to a digital lock (a long string of random digits). The computer that correctly guesses the combination wins a reward paid in a cryptocurrency called Ether. The digital lock resets roughly every 15 seconds, and the competition continues. Ethereum uses about31 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricitya year, about as much as the whole of Nigeria.
It's very difficult to calculate exactly how much responsibility the NFT industry should take for Ethereum's carbon emissions. Ethereum was going to run with or without NFTs. But with the growing demand for digital art, NFT buyers and sellers are becoming liable for an increasing share of Ethereum'stotal energy use, and some artists are starting to think twice.
Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa
Software that turns drones into artists developed
Tiny drones outfitted with a miniature arm that holds ink-soaked sponge may soon be able to create huge paintings and outdoor murals, thanks to a new software developed by scientists.
Paul Kry from the McGill University in Canada and his students teamed up to programme tiny drones to create dot drawings - an artistic technique known as stippling.
Programming the aerial robots to apply each payload of ink accurately and efficiently requires complex algorithms to plan flight paths and adjust for positioning errors, researchers said.
Even very slight air currents can toss the featherweight drones off course.
The drones, which are small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, are outfitted with a miniature arm that holds a bit of ink-soaked sponge.
As they hover near the surface to be painted, internal sensors and a motion capture system help position them to dab the ink in just the right places.
So far, the flying robots have rendered - on paper - portraits of Alan Turing, Grace Kelly and Che Guevara, among others. Each drawing is composed of a few hundred to a few thousand black dots of varying sizes.
Eventually, larger drones could be deployed to paint murals on hard-to-reach outdoor surfaces, including curved or irregular facades, Kry said.
Aug 9, 2016
Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa
Robot swarms follow instructions to create art
https://techxplore.com/news/2020-10-robot-swarms-art.html?utm_sourc...
Oct 15, 2020
Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa
NFTs: Why digital art has such a massive carbon footprint
How much would you be willing to pay for a one-of-a-kind work of art? For some collectors, the limit lies somewhere in the region of hundreds of millions of dollars. What about a work of art that has no tangible form, and exists only as a digital token that's no more "real" than a JPEG file? Welcome to the strange world of crypto art collectibles, also known as NFTs.
Like Bitcoin, NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are cryptocurrencies. But whereas individual bitcoins all have the same value, NFTs are more like baseball cards. Each token has a different value and they can't be used to buy things. They exist on your computer as digital representations of artworks, songs, films and games, among other things.
When you buy an NFT, you're buying a unique certificate of ownership, which is locked away on an immutable distributed database known as a blockchain. The creator of the artwork generally retains the copyright and in most cases, you own little more than bragging rights. Creators are also likely to pass the costs for creating your NFT files (or "minting" them) on to you (around US$100 as I write this).
Most of the time, what you'll also be responsible for is an enormous carbon footprint.
Because they depend on a blockchain, NFTs use a lot of energy. Most creators still use Ethereum, a blockchain secured using a similar proof-of-work system to Bitcoin. This involves an energy-intensive computer function called mining. Specialist mining computers take turns guessing the combination to a digital lock (a long string of random digits). The computer that correctly guesses the combination wins a reward paid in a cryptocurrency called Ether. The digital lock resets roughly every 15 seconds, and the competition continues. Ethereum uses about 31 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity a year, about as much as the whole of Nigeria.
It's very difficult to calculate exactly how much responsibility the NFT industry should take for Ethereum's carbon emissions. Ethereum was going to run with or without NFTs. But with the growing demand for digital art, NFT buyers and sellers are becoming liable for an increasing share of Ethereum's total energy use, and some artists are starting to think twice.
https://theconversation.com/nfts-why-digital-art-has-such-a-massive...
Apr 3, 2021