Thread: Swirling Laser Vortex Display Ideas

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I did a test run of my vortex last night.
Thanks agian to mikeerdas for posting his tutorial.
It worked great. But i used a digital camera rather than my video camera.
what was recorded didnt do it justice. I'll have to ry agian on my next day off.

I built a 4' diameter "portal" with about a 19" center hole to veiw the vortex wthrough. The vortex is a bit larger but I wanted it to be safely outside the hole people woule be looking through.
The vortex is oval , but I wnet with a round portal.. No paint or inscription yet. made of pink insulation, so right now it looks like a big donut.

Only problem I have, is it takes about 24' to get the vortex to this size. so it takes up the whole lenght of the garage.
I bulit a pvc tunnel frame to try to contain the fog and keep any light from other props out ( More space) Dont have enough material to cover this frame yet. so this will need further testing.
But it takes so much space that there isnt much room for other stuff.

I may have to re-think where its going to go. With the frame covered, It might make outdoor use easier.

So I am interested to see where others are useing theirs.

If you angle your mirror a little more or change the angle the laser hits the mirror, you should be able to get a larger portal in a shorter distance. Mine was at least 6 feet across at a distance of about 8-10 feet.

I have both a green and a violet laser pointer, so I've been playing with a couple of different setups. By carefully aiming the lasers so that the violet circle is either just inside or outside the green, I got some really wild swirls! MUCH better than just one color. The biggest problem is alignment. Without using prisms to combine the two beams (which I don't have), it's nearly impossible to get them aligned even close to each other. I haven't figured out how I'm going to use that yet.

The other thing I've been playing with is called the "liquid sky" effect. (Like the scene with the egg pods in Alien.) Basically, it's the same thing as the vortex, but in a flat line instead of a circle. I'm using the 6-sided spinning mirror assembly out of a HP Laserjet III. It's much easier to get both lasers aligned with this setup. I'm thinking I'll use that at shin level with low lying fog in my swamp area.

My recordings didn't do it justice either. I'll try to get some video together.

Originally Posted by icemanfred

I did a test run of my vortex last night.
Thanks agian to mikeerdas for posting his tutorial.
It worked great. But i used a digital camera rather than my video camera.
what was recorded didnt do it justice. I'll have to ry agian on my next day off.

Looking forward to seeing video of your vortex when you get a chance. Unfortunately, I don't even have a video camera. All the videos I've posted were with an 8MP digital camera point and shoot. I am, however, getting a 10MP Fuji W1 3D camera soon that also shoots 3D video. The vortex would be quite an incredible subject for 3D photography and video:

FinePix REAL 3D W1 | Fujifilm Global

tried the video camera when I got home. didnt do any better. dont know what setting would be best. Or what i am doing wrong in trying to video this effect.

Okay, in an effort to make the vortex larger or decrease the distance needed. I added a small mirror with a shim ( about 1/8") under one side.

at a distance of only 12' I got a vortex about 8.5" wide.
I was able to get a 23" vortex at about the distance of 38" instead of 24'

Right now the mirror is held on by two spots of hot glue. I think I will secure it with silicone all the way around the mirror.

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