Integrated Non-light-Emissive Animatable Textile Displays

Abstract

Textile displays are a commonly investigated topic in the field of interactive textile research. Textile displays allow various display technologies to be embedded in the textile to enhance the textile to display images and animations on the textile. This work explores the development process of non-light-emissive displays using heat-sensitive thermochromic inks. In non-light-emissive textile displays, the display is more subtle and ambient, and has a natural form of color change. To actuate the thermochromic inks, we introduce the use of Peltier semiconductor elements along with a fine-tuned closed-loop temperature control system. The technology describes a robust, fast, and active controllability of the color of fabric. This controllability allows dynamic patterns to be displayed on the actual fabric in a programmable manner which is presented through a wide range of prototypes of textile displays. With the ubiquitous and subtle nature of this textile display system, we envision that it will be able to breathe life into the textiles (and even paper materials) of the future. Hence, we envision that the technology presented through this research would radically challenge the boundaries of current and future textile research and industry.