Sand Painter was an 11’ x 17’ output device, printing ephemeral 1-bit images in silica sand.

Installed at SIGGRAPH 2004 in Los Angeles, it was a collaboration inspired by drypainting traditions in art and hyper-scaling of design through digitization.

Sandpainter project photograph.

Sandpainter project showing the machine and its output during a print. Image editing via vacuum.

The CNC motion platform was provided by Bill Kreysler and I wrote the g-code interface. Gene Cooper developed the print head and did integration, and Karl Lang provided custom dithering for 1-bit images.

sand painter on wikipedia entry for siggraph conference

The Sandpainter, featured on the SIGGRAPH Wikipedia page, depicting a foreshortened self-portrait.