[So how does this work?](https://imgur.com/gallery/e5gH3sZ) (Video Clip)
How does the technology work? Should the lights be blanketing the entire table in light? How is there light appearing only from where the lights are not?
I shot some video at CES because I thought it looked cool but it wasn’t till after I left that I realized they are only creating color where the shadows are. There were three lights from the lamp above the table. The company I *think* is part of Panasonic (they were under the Panasonic sign). The logo I remember having “RGB” but I can’t find any other info about them.
In: Technology
The table *is* blanketed in light. As long as nothing is blocking the lights, the red, green and blue lights combine to illuminate the table in white light.
However, the objects on the table do block the light and thus cast shadows. And since each light is in a slightly different place above the table, the shadows from each light are also in different places. So e.g. some points on the table receive green and blue light, but no red light – this is the red light shadow and it has a light blue (cyan) color, because blue and green light together make cyan. Same for the other two: the part of the table where green light casts a shadow is illuminated only by red and blue, which makes magenta. The blue-light shadow is illuminated only by red and green light, which makes yellow.
So we have three main colors of shadow on the table: cyan (the red light shadow), magenta (the green light shadow) and yellow (the blue light shadow).
You can also see a few places where shadows overlap. E.g. where the cyan and yellow shadows overlap, they make green. That’s because the cyan shadow has no red light, and the yellow shadow has no blue light. So in the overlapping regions, there is neither red nor blue light, and all that’s left is green.
In total, there are 8 colors on the table:
1. White, where red (R) green (G) and blue (B) are all visible
2. Cyan, where R is blocked and G & B remain
3. Magenta, where G is blocked and R & B remain
4. Yellow, where B is blocked and R & G remain
5. Red, where G & B are blocked
6. Green, where R & B are blocked
7. Blue, where R & G are blocked
8. Black(-ish), where R, G & B are all blocked
The black isn’t totally black because there is more light in the environment than just the three colored bulbs. In fact you can clearly see other black-ish/gray shadows cast by at least one other directional light source nearby (these shadows are longer than the colored ones and go in a totally different direction).
There are three lights. Each of the lights is in a different place. When an object casts these three shadows, they don’t line up because the three lights are in a different place. The shadow of one light shows the other two, unless it intersects the shadow of a different part of the object, in which only one light makes it to the table.
This is basic physics, beautifully demonstrated.
Lights are in slightly different positions meaning each light creates a shadow in a different position and that area of shadow is illuminated by the other two lights depending which lights then mix gives you a different colour in the “shadowed” area.
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