The device, called Graffiti Fur, leverages the fact that the shading properties of carpet and other fur-like materials tends to change as the fibers are raised or flattened. You’ve probably experienced this at some point or another — it happens when you vacuum carpets, and leave butt-prints on your friend’s microfiber couch cushions. By moving the fibers to face one direction or another, you can draw or erase lines to create a picture.
Related: This vacuum uses ultrasound to vibrate dirt our of your carpets
Usually this is done with just your fingers, but Sugiura (a professor at Keio University’s Graduate School of Media Design) wanted something more advanced, so he and his team built Graffiti Fur to speed up the process. It works sort of like a vacuum, but instead of suction, it uses an array of moving agitator feet controlled by a servo motor to selectively raise or flatten carpet fibers as its rolled across the floor. With the help of some custom-designed software, it can be programmed to “print” out large monochrome images line by line. Check out the video to see it in action:
We can’t really think of any practical uses for this thing, aside from maybe printing out greetings for houseguests, and providing hours of entertainment for your kids, but it’s definitely a cool idea. At this point it’s not clear if Sugiura and his team plan to mass produce Graffiti Fur and sell it to consumers, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see it pop up on Kickstarter or Indiegogo in the not-so-distant future.
