i was wondering if this type of thing would be possible....a keyboard that looks like a console from star trek. could a normal keyboard be torn apart to do this or am i thinking too far outside the box? i'm picturing something like a piece of plexi with the keys painted on with some type of translucent type of paint and a light under the plexi to light up the keys. again the problem comes with making it functional. hmmm.........
To get the look you would use a color backlight film, printed on an inkjet plotter (like an Epson). Your local graphics/sign shop can do this. As far as the functionality? That is the tricky part... Even the Prox sensors from QTech wouldn't exactly do the trick since so many of them packed together would likely interfere with each other...
If you know somone in the sign buisness, you could ask (maybe pay) for a print out of a keyboard pattern, with any style, and stick it to a membrane.
LCARS controls aren't static though. The REAL challenge would be to make one that is not only a keyboard but is also totally adaptable! (Maybe something along the lines of a touchscreen LCD?)
i dont know where to get you a link from but there was a guy that techtv featured once because he redid his entire apartment to be like star trek. he had some fancy looking keyboards on it. i believe he was a UKer, but thats all i can give you
yea i saw that to ,his wife left him and he modded everything!! he had the special fx sounds and everything it looked like he had the color backlite film
Also, on the newer series, I'm pretty sure they used the backlight film on the actual set for static pieces. That is too damn cool. Talk about nice work, I would love to see a build guide from that guy!
yes... i think..... yes, this is possible..... i think. i vaguely recall the last town i lived in two or three years ago had a pretty cool pc in the tourist information centre window. kinda like a pc monitor behind the window, and a flat coloured "sticker" on the window, with numbers. you pressed the number on the window, and the "sticker" picked it up. i always thought it was some sort of capacitance(sp?) keypad thing and every time i walked past it, i thought of star-trek. i know the description is a bit vague, i'll have a look next time im passing, and do a bit of a google for it. its hard to describe, but if you can find one in a keyboard layout, it would be ideal, as long as you dont mind the keyboard layouts being static.
Hey - I just did a touch sensitive switch mod with a QT110 and it worked a trick! Quantum research also have a product for this: http://www.qprox.com/products/qmatrix.php ...and even show it used for a keyboard! I would be more then willing to give you a hand if you where going to do this as I would probbly want one as well. I would say that you could mush it between two plates of plexi. There is some feild shaping that you would need to do around each key but its definately possible
thinking about it - backlight keys would be fantasticif you cut the letters out of aluminum or something
hmmm....I was just thinking about this - could a double sided black pcb be printed for this? That way you could have your electrodes in the keys (on the underside of the pcb) and use extra grounding traces to control the field. also you could print on the underside of the first layer of plexi (say in black) the keyboard layout. If you lit the underside of this it would glow around the keys. Hmmm I wonder. That would give a blue glowing keyboard with black masking. If I get some time (and there is interest) I'll mock something up in 3d.
thats something like I'm trying at the moment... check out http://p082.ezboard.com/fpropreplicasfrm88 for LCARS design stuff
I just made a test of a numpad, it culd be so nice to have a keyboard like this. if it can be done then i so want one!!!!
If someone could make a keyboard like that would change when you need it to like a LCARS does, I would so buy one. But really, the only way to do so would be with a touch screen LCD, which would be expensive. Sounds kool in any case. PEACE
ya it would need to be a lcd - but do you actually need your keyboard to change? isn't the keys always going to be the same?
