Illuminated dance floor
Encyclopedia
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
by the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever
Saturday Night Fever
Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 drama film directed by John Badham and starring: John Travolta as Tony Manero, an immature young man whose weekends are spent visiting a local Brooklyn discothèque; Karen Lynn Gorney as his dance partner and eventual friend; and Donna Pescow as Tony's former dance...
which it had gotten inspiration from a floor the director of the movie had seen at "The Club", a private supper club in Birmingham
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...
, Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
.
Early illuminated floors date back to the 1950s. They consisted of translucent coloured glass panels lit from below by bulbs.
Modern illuminated floors are lit using coloured LED
LEd
LEd is a TeX/LaTeX editing software working under Microsoft Windows. It is a freeware product....
s. Usually red, green and blue
RGB color model
The RGB color model is an additive color model in which red, green, and blue light is added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors...
LEDs are used to get a wide colour range. The floors are typically constructed of solid sided square cells and tiled with a toughened glass
Toughened glass
Toughened or tempered glass is a type of safety glass processed by controlled thermal or chemical treatments to increase its strength compared with normal glass. Tempering creates balanced internal stresses which cause the glass, when broken, to crumble into small granular chunks instead of...
, acrylic glass
Acrylic glass
Poly is a transparent thermoplastic, often used as a light or shatter-resistant alternative to glass. It is sometimes called acrylic glass. Chemically, it is the synthetic polymer of methyl methacrylate...
or Lexan
Lexan
Lexan is a registered trademark for SABIC Innovative Plastics' brand of polycarbonate resin thermoplastic. Polycarbonate polymer is produced by reacting bisphenol A with carbonyl dichloride, also known as phosgene. Lexan is the brand name for polycarbonate sheet and resin in a wide range of grades...
top. The sides and bottoms are made reflective and the top diffuses the light to give an even colour.
The floor can display different patterns and flash under computer control. A row or square matrix of panels share a control module. The control modules are typically connected to the computer via USB cables. USB hub
USB hub
A USB hub is a device that expands a single USB port into several so that there are more ports available to connect devices to a host system.USB hubs are often built into equipment such as computers, keyboards, monitors, or printers...
s handle fan-out to a number of control modules and extend the distance that can be reached. In future, cabling and control will be simplified by connecting the control modules to each other.
The tiles may also have pressure sensor
Pressure sensor
A pressure sensor measures pressure, typically of gases or liquids. Pressure is an expression of the force required to stop a fluid from expanding, and is usually stated in terms of force per unit area. A pressure sensor usually acts as a transducer; it generates a signal as a function of the...
s as for a dance mat so the pattern displayed or the music or other effects depend on the dancers.
These floors are not designed to conform to any dance floor
Dance floor
Dance floor may refer to:* Sprung floor, a floor to enhance performance and reduce injuries* Performance surface or marley floor, flooring suitable for dance or sport* Dance pad, a flat electronic game controller used for input in dance games...
standards, they are not sprung floor
Sprung floor
A sprung floor is a floor that absorbs shocks, giving it a softer feel. Such floors are considered the best available for dance and indoor sports and physical education....
s.