Engrave-able Paint

Idea Overview Coherent light, that is the light generated by lasers, has many unique attributes, leading to it’s use in a vast and ever-growing list of applications. The property relevant here is laser lights intensity and ability to be extremely finely focused. Using a commercially available hologram projector (of the type used at nightclubs), a template may be made of just about anything; this could be used with the projector and shone on a wall coated with the special wet paint. The laser light would etch the design onto the wall while wet, modifying the active pigment ingredient in the paint and burning in the design permanently as the paint dried.. I believe the depth of detail would be unparalleled and impossible to match, since the effect is in effect similar to wet-plate photography. Applications could include Advertising hoardings, prestigious buildings - even homes, streets and offices.

Detail Assuming that the design is for the reproduction of a famous etching of the Thames in the 17th Century. This is for application along the wall of a metro station or pedestrian tunnel. Paint the wall, turn on the laser hologram generator and burn the layer. Multiple layers could be subsequently applied in different colours using clearcoats of etch – able paint above the initial opaque base layer (as in newspaper printing – black first, then the other colours).

Time/cost to develop There’s a lot of technology here about which I know very little, and which needs further investigation – for example: Laser hologram manufacture and use; Keeping the hologram generator entirely still during the burn, and; The active temporarily photoactive pigment agent of the paint and how to guarantee its durability and non-toxicity; It’s likely that the problems have been resolved already in separate processes or in the manufacture of other products