Apparently, firing a 405-nanometer ultraviolet laser beam to your face doesn’t kill you. It just turns you into a creepy zombie, using a system called Fade Out. This is how it works.
Invented by Japanese artists Daito Manabe and Motoi Ishibashi, Fade Out creates images that glow in the dark using a 405-nanometer laser beam. First, their software analyzes the source image, turning it to grayscale and determining the intensity of each pixel. Then it fires the laser to different points in the canvas—in the case above, on a face—timing the firing so the pixels fade in synchronization. By the time the last pixel is fired, the ones fired at the beginning have already faded to the point in which they are almost gone. The process creates the highlights and the shadows necessary to create the image.
You can see it more clearly in this other video:
According to the artists, the process could be used in entertainment. Because firing ultraviolet lasers at your face is a whole lot of fun. [WBS via Pink Tentacle]
