MIT News May 4, 2021
Researchers at MIT have developed a way to rapidly update imagery on object surfaces. The system, dubbed “ChromoUpdate” pairs UV light projector with items coated in light-activated dye. The projected light alters the reflective properties of the dye, creating colorful new images in just a few minutes. ChromoUpdate is a texture transfer system for fast design iteration. For the early stages of design, it provides a fast grayscale preview that enables a texture to be transferred in under one minute. Once designers are satisfied with the grayscale texture ChromoUpdate supports designers in coloring the texture by transitioning individual pixels directly to a desired target color and color texture can be changed after transferring. This is accomplished by – using a UV projector rather than a UV LED, which enables pixels to be saturated individually rather than resetting the entire texture to black and providing two new texture transfer algorithms that allow for fast grayscale previews and color-to-color transitions…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
An ultraviolet (UV) light projector is used on a cell-phone case coated in light-activated dye. The projected light alters the reflective properties of the dye, creating images in just a few minutes.