Steampunk Digital Camera

[Ishtvan]

This is pretty random, but I was thinking about how to make a continuous-output camera with steampunk technology, and was curious if anyone had some ideas.

 

Perhaps the most obvious is an array of photoconducting pixels, where each one leads to some on/off/grayscale electronic output, like we have in some modern devices. They probably couldn't get the array that densely integrated though, so they might have to blow up the image with a diverging lens or something.

 

To me though, it seems like steampunk is more about mechanical knowledge, clockwork, gears, quartz resonators, etc. We know that they're good at making watches, so they can probably deal with mechanical vibrations at small scales. So, maybe instead of photoconductors, they could use the Raman effect where a photon is absorbed and excites an electron to some higher energy level, then the electron in turn releases an optical phonon as it falls back down in energy. This would turn the incoming light into mechanical oscillations (that could be pretty low in frequency depending on the band structure of the material) that might be more easy to deal with in steampunk technology.

 

[EDIT: Another idea: Photochemical reaction like the one that takes place in film, but much faster, etches into re-usable wax cyllinder. The reaction would be a photo-assisted etch of something like a wax cyllinder, so that the media would be re-usable. The cyllinder would spin, so that the cyllinder section behind the camera lens gets exposed to the incoming light and photochemically etched, then rotated on to the readout section, where a strip of tiny needles would drag over the etched image pixels and convert the image to an electronic output (just like a record player). Then, the imaged section of the cyllinder rotates on to a heater that re-melts and smoothes the wax. Finally it rotates all the way back around to the chemical bath and camera lens to get an updated image etched into it again.

 

You would have to replace the chemical bath in the etching section after a while, but it could last for some time.]

 

Any thoughts?

[sparhawk]

How do the surveilance cameras work? Obviously they can differentiate between friend and foe, otherwise they would shoot the guards indescriminately.

[Domarius]

This was touched on in the T2 dialogue in the hammerite cathedral - one guard asks another how they can tell the difference, the other just replies that he should be attending Karras' sermons if he wanted to know.

 

My personal guess is that the guards have something in their helmets that the camera can sense (magneticaly, visually, whatever).

[Maximius]

In a general sense, I had always assumed that the technology of T1/2 had some basis in magic. For example, the Tank Mechs with their little firebox in the back seem the perfect candidates for consuming fire crystals for their energy. My own personal interpretation was that some of the technology of the world had been given a jump start by the availablity of magical energy sources, which accounted for the mixture of pre-industrial technology (swords, torches, etc.) alongside street lamps, robots, camera-bots.

 

Perhaps crystals could help explain the cameras? The eye of the camera takes in an image, that image is then passed through a kind of holograph crystal that has replicas of the guards stored inside it. If the image matches up the camera ignores the individual, if it doesnt, zap! Or perhaps something even simpler, as domarius points to, the armor or helmets could be made of a special metal that the camera ignores for some reason. Of course, servants had better be given a collar or bracelet of the same at least or risk being nailed.

 

This could make for a fun little sub mission in a larger map, in order to sneak past some especially tough cameras the Thief must steal a helmet or something. That portion of the map could be played with the Thief having to deal with a cumbersome helmet on his head, its lets him past the cameras but it limits his vision and hearing a bit or something like that.

Edited November 29, 2005 by Maximius

[oDDity]

I think an obvious answer is that the camera's simply take a series of fasst photographs, and there is a guard in a contol room emplyed to watch the results, this also answers the question of how they know friend from foe.

The viewing device could be one of those very early zoopraxiscope machines which looked a movie, but was actually just a series of photographs like a flip book. The series of pictures from the cameras would constantly be developed inside the machine and fed into the viewing carousel.

The guard would have to sit beside it, looking into the viwing slit.

[Macsen]

Someone should make a mission where the thief has to go around taking pictures to complete objectives.

 

"Blackjack High Priest Fornicatus and Lady Noethlymun, take a pic of them in bed together. Tell him you'll sell it to the Builder's Forge newspaper if he doesn't pay you 1,000 gold," or something similar...

[yoyamime]

I think some things just aren't meant to be known. The great thing about steampunk is that it employs technology that we aren't supposed to comprehend, like the streetlamps that gather and run from some unknown energy source.

I don't think that the cameras were monitored by guards. For one thing, where would the control room be? Secondly, the guard would notice after you blew the camera up with a fire arrow. I don't think that Karras' creations were meant to be at all like normal machines. Their little brazen faces were weird enough, not to mention their voice. It's like there's a little bit of Karras' soul in each of them. When they make their final utterance, 'Creation...' it's almost as if they've reached a final moment of acceptance.

The above paragraph is why steampunk is so great. There is no fixed answer; people are left to guess how things work, and it often leaves a tiny inkling in the back of your mind that something's not quite right. Subtelties like how the water hangs upside down in Constantine's mansion, don't need an explaination.

[sparhawk]

Someone should make a mission where the thief has to go around taking pictures to complete objectives.

 

Actually I was thinking of this very thing myself several days ago.

 

Well, WE could be this "someone".

[yoyamime]

Oooo... like Project Zero. But Thief. And not like Project Zero at all... I'll shut up.

[Ishtvan]

I thought T2 attempted to explain friend from foe discrimination with that "server room" you found in Soulforge. One explanation is that each camera was wirelessly beaming its images to this cluster of some kind of computers, probably mechanical.

 

Granted, the Thief world also had magic, but considering steampunk alone, it doesn't have to be incomprehensible. It's more like an alternate history of technology. In one of the early books of the genre, The Difference Engine, for example, the main departure from our history is that Babbage's mechanical computer was finished and adopted into society. As Sparhawk pointed out, in modern times someone actually built a mechanical computer following Babbage's plans, and it worked.

 

The first steam engine was invented in 100 AD by Heron, but at the time, no one thought it was useful (they had enough slaves and oxen to do labor ). It's not that difficult to imagine a different course of history where someone did find that 100 AD engine useful and continued to improve it.

[Darkness_Falls]

I think an obvious answer is that the camera's simply take a series of fasst photographs, and there is a guard in a contol room emplyed to watch the results, this also answers the question of how they know friend from foe.

Considering I would get bombed 0.0005 seconds after being spotted by a camera in T2, and a human's raw reaction time is more like 0.2 seconds, I find this theory implausible. If I was a guard or the owner of the mansion and it was human-monitored, I would hope the person monitoring would take a bit more time than a millisecond to analyze the situation before unleashing a bomb in the middle of the mansion.

 

I think some things just aren't meant to be known.

I agree. This is part of the reason why I appreciate Thief so much. There doesn't need to be an answer for everything, imo...

[Ishtvan]

Okay, guess no one feels particularly inventive. Can someone at least tell me if the constantly photo-etched, needle-read and re-smoothed wax cyllinder sounds feasible?

[Dram]

err...maybe if you make it as an example?

[TrevP]

Okay, guess no one feels particularly inventive. Can someone at least tell me if the constantly photo-etched, needle-read and re-smoothed wax cyllinder sounds feasible?

Ha! I love that idea.

[god_is_my_goldfish]

Okay, guess no one feels particularly inventive. Can someone at least tell me if the constantly photo-etched, needle-read and re-smoothed wax cyllinder sounds feasible?

 

I have afew ideas for Steampunk security cams, but I'm under a heavy workload, so I can't get anything done soon.

[Ishtvan]

Hmm, perhaps I can bring my sub-par art skills to bear on this one, since I can visualize it pretty well in my head. This would just be for the inner workings of the camera though, like what you see when you smash it. The faceplate is pure aesthetics.

[obscurus]

I thought T2 attempted to explain friend from foe discrimination with that "server room" you found in Soulforge. One explanation is that each camera was wirelessly beaming its images to this cluster of some kind of computers, probably mechanical.

 

Granted, the Thief world also had magic, but considering steampunk alone, it doesn't have to be incomprehensible. It's more like an alternate history of technology. In one of the early books of the genre, The Difference Engine, for example, the main departure from our history is that Babbage's mechanical computer was finished and adopted into society. As Sparhawk pointed out, in modern times someone actually built a mechanical computer following Babbage's plans, and it worked.

 

The first steam engine was invented in 100 AD by Heron, but at the time, no one thought it was useful (they had enough slaves and oxen to do labor ). It's not that difficult to imagine a different course of history where someone did find that 100 AD engine useful and continued to improve it.

 

 

Even more interestingly, an Ancient Greek contraption was found in a shipwreck at the bottom of the Mediteranean Sea which turned out to be a functional mechanical computer for calculating the postitions of stars, and must have been a highly useful navigational aid. It consisted of a large cluster of bronze gears, I have no idea how it worked, but apparently it did (or so is my understanding, I might be wrong). Actually, that steam engine you mention turned out to be somewhat useful - I watched a documentary recently where they showed how it was used in ancient times as a missile launcher: the steam engine was used to generate compressed steam which was then released suddenly to launch large arrows at the enemy. I think it only got limited use, there are very few records of it, and it must have been cumbersome and slow.

 

The Ancient Greeks and Romans invented quite a few things we think of as more modern ideas, but most of their technology was lost in the Dark Ages, when the Roman empire collapsed. Quite interseting to think what could have been had the Roman Empire survived...

[Ishtvan]

True that. A lot of the Roman solutions to problems utilized the cheapness of slave labor though, like their central heating system that had a bunch of slaves waving fans in the basement.

 

The ancient Greeks also knew to oxidize the surface of the lead supports in their columns so they wouldn't react with the marble or corrode themselves. When modern archeologists put the Acropolis at Athens back together, they didn't know to do this with the column supports, and the supports eventually corroded and the columns fell over again. I thought that was funny.