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Screengrab via Ambos/Vimeo

This Christmas tree has 3D mapped lighting, and it’s stunning

It's easier than putting up ornaments.

 

AJ Dellinger

Tech

Posted on Dec 19, 2015   Updated on May 27, 2021, 11:38 am CDT

For all of the holiday cheer brought by decking the halls and decorating the tree, taking down all those ornaments and lights can bring out the Scrooge in us all. Christmas clean up becomes much easier when you simply project your decorations. 

Brazilian art studio Ambos decided to go the geek route with its yuletide traditions by replacing tinsel with tech. The collective programmed its own mapping tool using the Processing programming language that renders lights considerably prettier than the ones you buy in bulk at the hardware store. 

The 3D projections would spruce up any spruce, but the designers really went all out with their project; they rendered the tree in 3D and mapped out the design to its specific build, then adorned it with ornaments that are given an extra shimmer by the lights of the projector.

While Ambos’ approach to holiday sprit is gorgeous, it also isn’t the first to map out decorations digitally. Others have done similar projects, like Full Screen Studios’ tree-shaped box display that it projected a wide variety of designs on:

Another YouTuber mapped out designs to project onto his tree that adds some digital flare to the existing physical lights:

And just like there are the sad, shriveled trees that look ready to fall over from the second you bring them home, the digital world has its own equivalent of the Charlie Brown tree:

None quite match the Ambos system in sheer beauty, but they do still offer the added benefit of simply flipping a switch to rid yourself of decorations once the season ends. 

H/T Homecrux | Screengrab via Ambos/Vimeo

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*First Published: Dec 19, 2015, 12:41 pm CST