After trying some work with a LED matrix I decided that is was time to look for a simple way to experiment with the visualisation of the data.
There are three routes to take: the stain, the line or the flock route. I’m looking for ways of translating the parameters: colour, length, applied pressure and pressure duration which I’ve used in the paper models. I made a sketch using the same felt-tips as I used for my earlier prototypes.
I made a flock wrist-top with fake LED’s. Two paper ‘buttons’ can be activated to indicate nice or bad smell.
I tried the lines with coloured elastic bands. That worked very nice. But translating that to fake EL-wire it was just too stiff.
Then I read a nice article by Joanna Berzowska from XS Labs in this .x-med-a. publication. That was very inspiring in terms of how to approach a wearable and in term of the visualisation. She talks about ‘non-emissive, multi-pixel, fully addressable textile displays’ which are constructed entirely with soft materials like conductive fabric and yarn and thermochromic inks. Besides being completely integrated into the wearable they also have a nice refresh rate (rather slow e.g. 10 seconds to appear and disappear) that matches the speed of the sensors.
I’ve found this video: Electric Plaid: color-change electronic textile from XS Labs that demos the technique. You heat up the yarn with electricity and that heat activates the thermochromic ink. Using a layer of paint underneath the thermo ink you can create different colours.
This video also gives good insight into the process. And a nice article: http://wearables-chootka.blogspot.com/ and another one: http://clemenswinkler.com/skin/?cat=1 where this technique is used.
Here are some designs I made for this technique.
I’ve tried with copper wire and a piece of fabric with heat sensitive paint that was lying around but I can’t generate any colour changes with it yet.