FacePlace Photo Booth™ PhotoBooth L.L.C.
Although photo booths have been around since the 1920's, it was the advent of digital technology that enabled the elimination of messy tanks of dangerous chemicals. But most manufacturers of digital photo booths were simply integrating consumer cameras, consumer printers, and generic personal computers running Windows. None of these components were designed for the rigors of a commercial environment.
I was retained by Face Place to design the electronics for a new photo booth that would emphasize reliability and speed. To me, these requirements meant that I would need to create a unique piece of hardware, designed from the beginning to be suitable for a commercial application. The Polaroid Corporation had demonstrated a high speed strip printer that was rugged enough for the task. Since its complex printer drivers had already been compiled for the x86 family of processors, I decided to utilize a PC104 singe-board-computer as the foundation of the hardware. I then designed a peripheral board, which included hardware to interface two printers, a bill acceptor, and a coin acceptor, as well as an assortment of switches and lamps. In addition, the peripheral board incorporated several switching power supplies, a speech generator, as well as an alphanumeric display providing status, diagnostic, and accounting information to the operator.
Utilizing a CMOS image sensor, and working with an optical engineer, I designed the electronics for a rugged camera specifically for our needs. The peripheral board contained an FPGA which controlled the camera, and processed its resultant data stream.
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