Pinscreen

Pinscreen builds your picture from thousands of fine metal pins pushed through a dark plate. Each pin stands out as far as the picture is bright under it and carries a domed head in the picture's colour. From the front it reads as the picture; from the side, as a sculpted field.

How it works

The relief is real geometry, so the scene's light rolls over the pin heads and the pins shadow each other. A picture change is a pressure wave across the plate: under the front the pins sink back almost flush, their heads change colour at the bottom of the stroke, hidden in shadow, and they rise again into the new picture's relief. At rest a slow, very low swell runs through the pins. It is lit by your scene, and object effects work on it.

Settings

• Cols sets how many pins go across; the rows follow the frame.
• Depth sets how far the brightest pins stand out; Dip how far the wave sinks them.
• Spread and Sweep angle shape the wave.
• Head size, Metal and Roughness set the pins' look; Pin colour and Plate colour the metal and the plate.

Cursor

Press pushes the pins in under the cursor, like a hand behind the screen; Lift draws them out toward it.

Use it for

• Tech, product and engineering heroes
• Sculptural and interactive installations
• Portraits with a physical, tactile feel