Featured blog, Art, Filmmaking, Robotics, LEDs

Light Painting with a UR5 Robot Arm

June 19, 2018 - 2 min read

Owen Trueblood

In an attempt to visually convey the activity of a painting UR5 robot in static images I did some experiments capturing long exposure photographs of an LED light source attached to the end of the arm. The light is controlled by the I/O connector at the end of the arm so that I could turn it on and off from inside programs for the robot, which helped make composite shots.

My friend John and I stayed up all night to be able to capture our photos in true darkness.

Motion was animated using Blender and an addon that I wrote which can generate UR Script programs for the robot arm from a Blender animation.

The LED is way over on the end of the black stick. I wanted to be able to light paint above a stop motion capture of the robot painting. The light and the brush would take turns.

The rudimentary cave I made from random stuff around the lab to block out light for the first long exposure shots. While shooting, the entire robot and myself were cramped in there.

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