As we head towards Halloween next month we usually see animatronic eye projects done with the Raspberry Pi or Arduino, but we’ve never seen something like this.
Phil Burgess from Adafruit has created this pair of off-putting eyes using two spherical projectors called Gakken WorldEyes.
Information about this product is a bit scarce, but it works as as any normal display relying on its odd choice of “screen” (a dome) and subtle video effects to produce spherical imagery.
Burgess used a Raspberry Pi 3 to control the output, an HDMI splitter to duplicate the eye, and a bit of code you can find on GitHub.
Two Gakken WorldEye displays (Japan import), HDMI splitter, Raspberry Pi 3. #Halloween #monsters #rawr pic.twitter.com/ogLu3gTSuQ
— Phil Burgess (@PaintYourDragon) September 15, 2017
If this project interests you and you’re now hoping to buy yourself a WorldEye or two, we first suggest you watch this video by the excellent tech channel TechMoan on YouTube.
The description of that video also includes a few different videos which natively work on the device, and a tutorial to converting regular videos to work convincingly with the hardware.
It goes into a lot of detail covering how the WorldEye works and all its unique quirks, as well as some buying advice, as you’re probably going to need to import it.
Another maker – Christopher Williams – has already reproduced Burgess’ work, albeit with only one eye which you can see below.
Just in time for #halloween2017 ! @PaintYourDragon thanks for the project tutorial ???? pic.twitter.com/AzNGzjXFLi
— Christopher Williams (@RogueCynthana) September 21, 2017