This project is largely based on the work by Matt Parker of Stand-up Maths, his video I wired my tree with 500 LED lights and calculated their 3D coordinates, and the subsequent work done by the students of the 2021 Harvard GSD-6338 course.
This project builds upon the work from the previous work in three keys ways:
- The previous work was designed to run on a Raspberry Pi which, while relatively energy efficient, is a bit overkill for running some LEDs. This project implements the LED controller on an ESP32 using Arduino libraries. Due to the massive difference in price between an ESP32 and a Raspberry Pi, this provides a much lower cost and lower power solution than what is provided by the previous work.
- This project provides scripts which convert mp4 video files to a pixel mapping for the tree. This means you can create more animations in less time, simply by finding a video that matches your desired animation. The downside to this is that the tree is treated as a flat plane (by removing the y-axis), so perspective may be lost.
- This project also reduces the animation file size by converting the
.csvanimation files to a custom.xmasfile which is a lightly compressed version of the original file. The.xmasformat has other benefits too, such as having a different framerate per animation file.
This readme is a work in progress. I will be adding rough notes as I go, and will tidy this up once I'm done.
Before you can run any of the Python scripts, you first need to set up your virtual environment.
python3 -m venv venv
. venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txtTODO
The code has been built using the Arduino libraries and IDE, so I suggest using those. You will need to install the following libraries by downloading the linked .zip files and, in the Arduino IDE, going Sketch > Include Library > Add ZIP Library...
You will also need to add the following board using Tools > Board > Boards Manager... The following link contains instructions for doing this.
TODO
This is a one-man job... for now.