Dave's explanation regarding "compressable" and "tunable" are precisely
what I had in mind when I initially started to envision this some time
ago. Further there are a lot of other tricks from a computer science /
data visualization professional background. I envision tagging data and
creating a lot of other visual aspects to this that would even go so far as
to being able to alter the opacity of a given frequency range in order to
look at other more "interesting" frequencies to the viewer in realtime.
(Side note: I have a family member who was on the core team that developed
the CCD (for satellite usage since it was initially developed for that
application) and may try to find out some more interesting details for CCDs
and their early meetings / planning. Not sure if he'll be allowed to talk
about it, but after this long I would think perhaps some of the security
surrounding it would no longer be in effect.)
Right now the primary goal is to use devices that have digital output or
can be converted easily enough from analog to digital. The more compressed
(size) the better, but in the end, the goal is to get a first generation
device in place (even if a rather limited portion of the spectrum) and then
iterate on that.
On the point of radio waves, I could see that being converted pretty
handily into visual data. The trick here is to capture whatever data we
get with some form of visual correlation. This is to say, if we use radio
antennas to capture data, we have to get a location parameter as well in
order to overlay or integrate it into the visual 3D coordinate space.
That's not to say we have to have actual Z coordinates, but we have to be
able to at least relate the fields with other objects even if it is a
matter of programmatically mapping visual input into a faux distance that
then can correlate to other field strengths and likely corollary faux
distances that we can, in some meaningful way, apply to those. In other
words, we have to build relationships between each input: both visual and
non-visual. As long as there is a relationship we can make those
relationships visibly meaningful and present.
-G
On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 10:06 PM, David Thomson <
tcbuilder@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Ray,
>
> I am loosely quoting FCC bands, but I'm also using it just as a generic
> term to signify a range of frequencies used by a particular Tesla coil.
> Since Tesla coils are basically radio transmitters that can be tuned to any
> frequency there really is not a specific output frequency range to focus
> on.
>
> The idea of using CCD cameras that operate in the frequency range of the
> coil output seems like a good place to start. I can imagine a camera and
> processor that converts radio waves into visible frequencies for display on
> a monitor. The system could allow for color assignment to be "tunable" and
> "compressable" within the limits of the CCD. By compressable I mean having
> the ability to assign the visible spectrum to an adjustable bandwidth. By
> tunable I mean having the ability to assign the red spectrum to any
> specific radio frequency (within the limits of the CCD).
>
> Although I can imagine Hertz and others wanting to be able to visualize
> radio waves, I am not aware of any progress on this from 100 or more years
> ago. If you know of something, I would like to read about it.
>
> I imagine that if radio waves of a Tesla coil were observed, the Tesla coil
> itself would look like a light bulb with brightness and colors emanating
> from different parts. We would still need a "white" screen or other
> reflective surfaces in the background to see the effects of the light.
> After all, light is not actually visible, it just illuminates opaque
> objects. It would be similar to an x-ray machine or a flashlight.
>
> Dave
>
>
> On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 4:41 PM, R. E. von Postel <vonpostel@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
> > Dave:
> > To save confusion please define what you mean by a "band". Are you
> > referring to the the bands allocated by international treaty and
> > administered by the FCC or "bands" which might be defined by other
> > authority?
> >
> > I would imagine that work along the lines you suggest, for "radio
> > frequencies", is available dating from the "spark and arc" days or
> > preceding it. Resurrecting it would make an interesting project. Did
> Hertz
> > write a paper on the subject?
> > Ray
> >
> >
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