I've wanted to build an LED cube since I first saw one a few years ago but I never got around to it as in the past as it required a lot of custom hardware and software which I no longer have the time or ability to build. With the advent of cheap(ish) pixels, great Falcon hardware and Xlights/Nutcracker 4.X, I decided to put one together. The only other things necessary were metal grid panels that I cut in half, zip ties and a base made out of scrap wood.
The cube is 24x24x24 inches wide, 9x9x9 (729 pixels). In Nutcracker I created 9 9x9 horizontal matrices, arranged them into a cube as if viewed from above and about 45 degrees and defined a model group for the entire cube. I was able to find a number of effects that worked pretty well when applied to the model group, e.g., Butterfly, Fan and SingleStrand. I also played around with applying multi-layer effects to each matrix (Gil, you will recognize one of your effects from your ShutUpand Dance sequence). For this test, I drove everything from my new F16V2 (can't say enough good things about this device) but will eventually drive it from an F8.
While it's been pretty easy to get some cool effects, as you can see from the video, the limitations of 2D modelling for 3D effects, however, become apparent pretty quickly - here's a first plug for 3D support in Nutcracker
So in the end, I'm not sure how I will be using this going forward - it's easy to take apart so, I may make a large 3x3 panel matrix by laying out the panels side by side.
Appreciate any suggestions for creating alternative models and ideas on effects that may work.
Check out the video:
https://vimeo.com/136994396If you want more details on how I built it, I've included instructions below.
Paul.
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