Blair Neal
@laserpilot
Brooklyn NY - Creative Technologist/Artist working in experiential design and beyond www.ablairneal.com
Taking requests for weird AV equipment to make out of polymer clay. This is my first attempt at a little midi synth
If anyone in NY-10 hasnt voted in the primary today - please vote for @bradlander.bsky.social and oust that phony Dan Goldman
Photochromic dye and UV laser projector experiments continue - now on a much larger canvas
These cowards should have owned their choice and made their URL takeawhizz.biz - you don’t merely get a whizz, you take one
Plotting some of my generative trees from a tool I’ve been working on. Lots to do but I like what I’m getting so far!
6-ish weeks off and on of progress working with Claude Code to make a tool to make pen plottable trees/svgs. Tried like 3 or 4 different approaches and ive finally landed on manual branch placement and auto twig/leaf placement
Working on making a happy little tree generator for pen plotting a forest, but not with pure L-systems, just a little SVG tree builder tool with manual adjustments and then going to make it more procedural later
That feeling when someone sends you an Alibaba Express link they found because they think the trusted hardware you recommended is too expensive
Still dipping into some time to mess with generative braids - tried a new technique of having the strands "break" to simulate a highlight and i love how it is looking even more natural in spots. fixing those tight foldover curves is my white whale though...
Pen plotter results of some of the generative braid work I was doing a week ago. Still have some work to do to make it feel more organic but I’m encouraged by the results so far #plotter #penplotter
Trying to vibe code a generative braid that i can eventually pen plot has been quite a journey in trying to break down the problem well enough for AI to get what I'm trying to do. I've still got a little ways to go to fix edge cases, but im very pleased with what i've got so far.
ive been trying to figure out 2D braids/barber poles for pen plotting/faking occlusion and this took so long to get to but im so satisfied (havent worked out whats going on with the phase glitch in the middle, but whatevs)
I also have a method that thickens based on line length - thicker lines are longer.
I’ve been trying to find a good way of making thicker pen plotter lines for years and finally cracked a way with some new code. This is originally a drawing I made, converted to vector and then an attractor laid on top to thicken lines within an influence field #plotterart #bantamtools
Sharing a little pen plotter calibration tool made with Claude laserpilot.github.io/Pen-Plotter-... Code on GitHub. Meant to let me figure out just how close and fine I can get certain pen tips for fine drawings. (Cc @golan.bsky.social if this is useful for any students)
Another great move from the Adams team, our embarassing mayor who can't be out of office soon enough. Sidenote - is $100 considered a decent bribe? was it jsut like a balled up pile of 20's, 5's and 1's? what were they trying to cover up with so little money? an ill timed fart?
Great ad timing on this DC tourism ad in your app @nytimes.com food! History! Raids!
Shout out to that time in 2016 where i chopped up images of a Where's Waldo book and had @genekogan.bsky.social 's amazing ofxTSNE sort them by similarity to make a hellish Where's Waldo
Used Claude Code/Gemini to help me make a CEF browser->Spout2 simple app for Windows that ill release soon. Going to do the same for Syphon on MacOS because why not. There were old implementations of this, but most were abandoned. Let me know if this sounds useful!
Response to the photochromic+UV laser has been awesome - thanks for everyone's support. I didn't get to share this bonkers bit of footage where the laser and camera shutter sync up briefly and it looks like the image is just drawing itself for a moment. (extra footage here youtu.be/xEo0MRYg4SY )
Wow - taking a look at my ancient "How to keep an installation up 4evr" guide in 2025 with an AI lens and asking it if it can update everything and automate some stuff. New installation tools incoming soon i guess?? (link to old guide for those unfamiliar github.com/laserpilot/I... )
Sharing some WIP footage for a new experiment that uses photochromic pigment and a custom UV laser projector. The images fade over time, allowing for an evolving canvas. More info here ablairneal.com/project/forg...
Successful test composite fft plot of Ok Computer (blue=bass/green=mid/red=high). Super fun comparing whole albums like this - now just need to make the time text bigger and the plots less tedious to make