SparkFun Forums

[dbucha]

Hello,

I'm looking into entering a design contest that consists of the collaboration of technology and fashion. I got fashion down but I'm not very tech savvy. I was told by a friend that these forums might give me the answers I'm looking for?

I want to create a dress or garment(s) that is capable of playing a live video feed onto the garment itself. Not talking about projecting images onto the garment, I want the garment itself to play the feed. How would I go about this?

Thank you,
D.

[Mee_n_Mac]

Can you clarify what kind of video and display you want ? Are you talking about having the equivalent of an HDTV sewn into the dress or just some colors representative of a video stream ?

[Mee_n_Mac]

Let me add 1 midway point btw the 2 extremes I had in mind above. Perhaps you've seen LED suits. If not Google them. With enough $$s and battery power you could make an LED dress that does the kind of low resolution video shown below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5XQLvFPcBM

http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_libs_OctoWS2811.html
So what do you have in mind (and care to spend) ?

[dbucha]

Hi!

Thank you for your response! I'm looking to use a live feed onto the dress, for example as the model walks down the runway she will be streaming a video of the audience onto her dress. The link you provided is a really good start, so thank you! The budget would be $1000 which I'm not sure if that's enough? I'm not familiar with the pricing of LED equipment.

Also, is there anyway to provide a higher resolution? Doesn't need to be HD quality but maybe more of a precise image quality?

Thank you again

[TS-John]

Hello!

I think what you are really looking for is an LED fabric:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4JFyVchss8

I am very unfamiliar with this type of product so I am uncertain what the current consumption and voltage requirements are. Chances are the LEDs will communicate via I2c or a single wire interface.

The video has a telephone number in the description. I am not sure if it is still in operation but it might be worth looking into.

Hope this helps.
-John-

[Mee_n_Mac]

Good find ... maybe. Their website makes me wonder if that product was a 1-off.
http://www.totalsolutionproductions.com/

Googling 'LED fabric' brings up some other possibilities. Apparently Philips sold something called Lumalive back in 2007.
http://www.lighting.philips.com/main/ap ... s-textile/
I don't know if it's the right stuff or not. There seems to be some other small vendors with small panels of LED fabric. Perhaps those panels could be combined?

[jjinno]

Go to a Chinese supplier site like http://www.aliexpress.com, and look up "ws2812b flexible panel"... Most of those vendors *say* that they can make custom sizes... But then you have to trust somebody to re-jump voltage in at the right places...

Second point, the "video" part of wearable fashion is rarely actual video... It's usually a saved graphic animation of sorts... The point being that you will need something like a Raspberry Pi (at least) to do your decoding of a video stream (unless I am SUPER understating your embedded coding skills)

The hardest part of this project is gonna be hiding the batteries, 5v regulators (that can handle this current) and/or video controller...

But aside from that, sure... This whole thing is totally doable