Show & Tell
Every Pelican Lab subdomain earns a live "Try Me" — a piece you can actually watch or interact with. This one is warming up: the first light-painting frame and a projection-mapping loop land here as soon as they're shot.
First up: a programmable LED pixel-stick light painting, and a short projection-mapping loop onto a real surface. Check back — or follow along in the lab docs.
Three disciplines, one medium
Light as a programmable medium. We start with what's in hand and work up progressively — projection mapping, light painting, and laser FX all treat light as the material.
🗺️ Projection Mapping
Warp and mask video so it lines up precisely with a physical object, wall, or stage set.
- MadMapper / TouchDesigner (interactive)
- MapMap / VPT 8 (free, learn warping)
- Resolume Arena (multi-projector shows)
🖼️ Light Painting
Draw with a moving light into a long exposure — freehand trails, or an LED pixel stick that renders a bitmap in mid-air.
- Camera: Manual + Bulb, tripod
- Addressable LED pixel stick
- ESP32 + WS2812 + our converter
🔺 Laser FX
Beam and graphic effects from a galvanometer laser projector. Powerful — and the one capability behind a hard safety gate.
- Laser projector + DAC
- ILDA / LaserOS / Pangolin
- Gated by the Laser Safety SOP
Hardware — all in hand
No wishlist gate here — every discipline has its gear ready. Exact models are logged in the lab docs.
On hand now
- Video projector — projection mapping
- Addressable LED + ESP32 — pixel sticks, LED mapping, Art-Net
- Laser show projector + DAC — galvo/ILDA laser FX
- Camera + tripod — long-exposure light painting
Software stack (open-source first)
- MadMapper · TouchDesigner · MapMap · VPT 8 · Resolume
- StreamDiffusionTD / TouchDiffusion (AI content)
- Spout / Syphon · NDI · Art-Net / sACN · OSC / DMX
- FastLED / WLED (ESP32 pixel control)
Safety — laser work is gated
The show laser is the one genuinely hazardous capability here. Galvo show projectors are typically Class 3B/4 — capable of permanent eye injury. Work is scaled to risk across three tiers.
- Bench / test — low power, controlled space, beam terminated, eyewear on.
- Rehearsal / install — NHZ established, no eyes in the beam path, session checklist done.
- Public show — signed safety checklist, operator on the e-stop, and no audience-scanning without an FDA/CDRH variance.