Infinity War: Cosmic Pager

[Lord Finesse]

Re: Infinity War: Device (spoilers)

Same, once I thought I nailed it down, I'd see another that may be more accurate. The one pictured below was one I bought for $5. Going to cut it up, sand it, then go through all my random parts and see if I can slap something together. Might make a more accurate one once Captain Marvel comes out, but a less then accurate one will hold me over until then.

I’m glad to hear that it was scratch built. I’ve been racking my head over which pager this is

View attachment 817063

 

[Lord Finesse]

Re: Infinity War: Device (spoilers)

For the life of me, I can't figure out if the addition to the bottom right is a button, or some kind of thumb scanner. Thoughts?

I've had the Motorola pager for a few days now and I've broken it down to start designing parts. It looks like the bottom of the pager in the movie is larger than the real one, which gives it a lip. Does anyone know if that runs around the whole device? And are there any more shots of the device that we haven't seen yet?

You can see the lip in the corner sticking out here.
View attachment 816204

 

[Gemini11]

Re: Infinity War: Device (spoilers)

For the life of me, I can't figure out if the addition to the bottom right is a button, or some kind of thumb scanner. Thoughts?

I've been thinking of it as a thumb scanner in the movie, but it will be a button on mine. That's how I play on turning on the electronics I showed in an earlier post.

 

[Lord Finesse]

Re: Infinity War: Device (spoilers)

Yeah, I think you're right. And I also think I'm going to do something similar to your build, with it being a button on mine.

I've been thinking of it as a thumb scanner in the movie, but it will be a button on mine. That's how I play on turning on the electronics I showed in an earlier post.

 

[Gemini11]

Re: Infinity War: Device (spoilers)

I think it's a camera lens for 2 way visual communication.

I assumed the top part was. It has a dot in the middle that makes it look like a camera to me.

 

[bobatrek]

Re: Infinity War: Device (spoilers)

New info from https://io9.gizmodo.com/heres-an-up-close-look-at-that-important-thing-from-inf-1826043950

Quick read of it:

Look at it, in all its beaten up, probably-now-Samuel-L.-Jackson-dust-covered glory! It turns out, according to Schulz—who works at RISE, one of several VFX studios that worked on the film—the beeper was never actually a practical prop. It was entirely CG, as was a lot of the post-credits scene surprisingly, beyond, you know, the obvious bits like people turning into dust.

 

[Lord Finesse]

Re: Infinity War: Device (spoilers)

I took that as a button, with some of it's color rubbed off

I assumed the top part was. It has a dot in the middle that makes it look like a camera to me.

View attachment 817138

- - - Updated - - -

Awesome stuff, thank you bobatrek! You win the internet for today, great find.

New info from https://io9.gizmodo.com/heres-an-up-close-look-at-that-important-thing-from-inf-1826043950

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-medi...ogressive,q_80,w_800/b3jfuhdvr4cbgu6yyvji.png

Quick read of it:

Look at it, in all its beaten up, probably-now-Samuel-L.-Jackson-dust-covered glory! It turns out, according to Schulz—who works at RISE, one of several VFX studios that worked on the film—the beeper was never actually a practical prop. It was entirely CG, as was a lot of the post-credits scene surprisingly, beyond, you know, the obvious bits like people turning into dust.

 

[breen2057]

Re: Infinity War: Device (spoilers)

New info from https://io9.gizmodo.com/heres-an-up-close-look-at-that-important-thing-from-inf-1826043950

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-medi...ogressive,q_80,w_800/b3jfuhdvr4cbgu6yyvji.png

Quick read of it:

Look at it, in all its beaten up, probably-now-Samuel-L.-Jackson-dust-covered glory! It turns out, according to Schulz—who works at RISE, one of several VFX studios that worked on the film—the beeper was never actually a practical prop. It was entirely CG, as was a lot of the post-credits scene surprisingly, beyond, you know, the obvious bits like people turning into dust.

you beat me to it.

from the same article showing some of the back of the beeper.

 

[Mike J.]

Re: Infinity War: Device (spoilers)

But what about THIS?

 

[OliverQueenIND]

Re: Infinity War: Device (spoilers)

 

[mrhodes]

Re: Infinity War: Device (spoilers)

Wow, how did you get so much detail out of that image? That is incredible!

 

[xl97]

Re: Infinity War: Device (spoilers)

Between designing and printing parts, I've been working on the electronics. I've been using an Arduino nano with a TFT screen to recreate the animation from the movie. This combination is too slow, you can see in the video I've linked.

I have some new parts on the way that are supposed to be faster. I just wanted to see if anyone knew how to make an Arduino load images faster since it is cheaper than the other option I'm trying.

https://vimeo.com/269798052

https://vimeo.com/269798052

Nice! (I Like when people add electronics to props.. soooooooo ANTI static-props now-a-days!)

Maybe try a different Arduino variant.. the 328x series doesnt have a lot of memory...

How are you currently loading them to the TFT?

 

[Gemini11]

Re: Infinity War: Device (spoilers)

Nice! (I Like when people add electronics to props.. soooooooo ANTI static-props now-a-days!)

Maybe try a different Arduino variant.. the 328x series doesnt have a lot of memory...

How are you currently loading them to the TFT?

Thank you!

In the video, I'm using a basic program to cycle through the pictures, kind of like a slide show. The program pulls from an SD card attached to the TFT. Is that kind of what you were wanting to know?

I have a new microcontroller coming in today that I'll mess with after work.

 

[xl97]

Yeah.. exactly what I was asking.. (I havent played with TFT screens much)...

but I wasnt clear if it was just static image cycled in after static image...etc

So does the Arduino send this data? or is there like an SD card on the back of the TFT screen to hold the images?..etc?

Maybe a link to your specific TFT screen your using?

Also.. what new micro controller did you go with?

Not that you NEED the wifi capabilities of an ESP8266 module..(or would you?) LOL...... but they are pretty powerful with more memory too..

 

[Gemini11]

Yeah they were just static images. It wouldn’t load fast enough for a video.

I went with a teensy. From what I’ve seen, they can load images faster. Which would get rid of that scroll loading process for each image.

The SD card slot is on the TFT and loads from pin IO on the TFT board. I have a new screen coming in today too that’s larger. I’m replying on my phone so I don’t have the link but I’ll get that to you when I’m off work.

I don’t think you’d need WiFi on the board, but I guess it could be used for updating? If this one isn’t fast enough I’ll look into that one!

 

[xl97]

I think the Teensy will be fast enough....

I'm just not clear if the bottle neck is on the micro controller side or the TFT side.. (especially if its loading from a local SD socket)

 

[Gemini11]

I think the Teensy will be fast enough....

I'm just not clear if the bottle neck is on the micro controller side or the TFT side.. (especially if its loading from a local SD socket)

When I looked up how to make my setup faster all I could find was that it couldn't go fast enough because of the Arduino. If someone can figure out how to make it faster with the Arduino it would make it cheaper.

I've seen the teensy work with the screen I just got and it loaded pretty fast. I hope to have that working by tomorrow. I'll show it as soon as I have it working.

I haven't gotten a chance to try this screen yet but this is the one I just got in to use with the teensy. You can probably find it cheaper on eBay if you want to wait for it to come in from China.
Link to the new screen: https://goo.gl/XsX9be

 

[Gemini11]

Just wanted to give an update on the electronics. I have the Teensy working with my new TFT screen. I couldn't get the sd card reader on the screen to work. After researching it, I figured out they don't really make them work for some reason. For now, I have my sd card reader from my old screen hooked up, but I have some sd card reader modules coming in soon.

You can see from the video that it's still scrolling to load. I'm looking at some new libraries to increase the speed so it's not so noticeable. If anyone knows any that will make images just pop on the screen that would be great!

*Updated video below*

https://vimeo.com/270521705

[video=vimeo;270521705]https://vimeo.com/270521705[/video]

*Update*
I've already added a new library but I just added it to this post since it was really quick. The loading is faster in this video but is still not as fast as I'd like. Leaving the older video for comparison.

https://vimeo.com/270537705

[video=vimeo;270537705]https://vimeo.com/270537705[/video]

 

[mrhodes]

You can see from the video that it's still scrolling to load. I'm looking at some new libraries to increase the speed so it's not so noticeable. If anyone knows any that will make images just pop on the screen that would be great!

Howdy, seeing as I've got a reasonable amount of Arduino & SPD5408 TFT experience, and also I'm also building the same project, thought I'd chime in. I think you're going to have issues getting it to pop onto the screen. Unfortunately due to the tiny amount of memory on an Arduino, images are read in a filestream from SD card, in a buffer of X pixels at a time, and the default setting on the SPD5408/TFT library is 20 pixels. While this buffer can be increased, I haven't found it to have a dramatic impact on performance. Faster chips may improve this more significantly, but you'll still be constrained by how the library operates and the constraints imposed by low memory on Arduino systems.

Two potential alternatives:
1) Store the BMP as ascii data inside the sketch. This should make it very quick, but I suspect will not be an option simply due to BMP size and memory constraints.
2) Use the SPD5408/TFT Libraries in order to draw objects and text directly to the LCD. This will be ultra quick, and given the simplicity of the images, very achievable. This was probably how I was going to do it on mine.

Apologies if any of this is irrelevant for your Teensy or the model of TFT used here. Hope it helps, love the project!

 

[Gemini11]

Howdy, seeing as I've got a reasonable amount of Arduino & SPD5408 TFT experience, and also I'm also building the same project, thought I'd chime in. I think you're going to have issues getting it to pop onto the screen. Unfortunately due to the tiny amount of memory on an Arduino, images are read in a filestream from SD card, in a buffer of X pixels at a time, and the default setting on the SPD5408/TFT library is 20 pixels. While this buffer can be increased, I haven't found it to have a dramatic impact on performance. Faster chips may improve this more significantly, but you'll still be constrained by how the library operates and the constraints imposed by low memory on Arduino systems.

Two potential alternatives:
1) Store the BMP as ascii data inside the sketch. This should make it very quick, but I suspect will not be an option simply due to BMP size and memory constraints.
2) Use the SPD5408/TFT Libraries in order to draw objects and text directly to the LCD. This will be ultra quick, and given the simplicity of the images, very achievable. This was probably how I was going to do it on mine.

Apologies if any of this is irrelevant for your Teensy or the model of TFT used here. Hope it helps, love the project!

I was actually looking into the storing the pictures in the code and forgot all about it, so I'll have to try that soon! The only problem I ran into with that is the limit of how many colors you can have and how detailed the images can be. I've moved on from the Arduino due to the speed reasons.

Is that the 2.8" screen? If so, it's a little big for my design right now and I'm not sure if the libraries would transfer over easily with my screen, but I'll be looking into that too!