Two Swiss researchers have created what could be the largest portable ink jet printer in the world.
Called Hektor, the printer built by Jürg Lehni and Uli Franke converts small computer created images into huge facsimilies that it recreates with cans of spray paint.
Hektor can be mounted on any wall and the spray can at its heart is moved with two independently controllable pulleys.
The machine has already won an award at the 2003 Machinista media art festival.
Researcher Jürg Lehni came up with the idea for Hektor when thinking about novel ways for an artist to turn computer-drawn images into something more concrete.
He wanted to combine the precision of computer-generated images with the woolier outlines produced by spray paint.
Working with friend and electronic engineering student Uli Franke, Mr Lehni created Hektor. The machine suspends a spray paint using two toothed belts that feed through a pair of motors.
Working together the two motors allow the paint can to be positioned anywhere inside the box they define.
The spray can is held in a custom-made harness that controls when and how long it sprays paint on the wall it faces.
All the parts for Hektor fit in two suitcases making the whole device portable and adaptable to almost any surface that the motors can be attached to.
Mr Lehni also created a program that converts images created with Adobe Illustrator into files that Hektor can paint onto walls.
Writing about the creation of Hektor, Mr Lehni said one of the hardest parts was designing the path-finding algorithm that works out the most efficient path for the can to trace out and paint an image.
Now it is fully working Hektor can reproduce almost any image in a fashion that "is obviously not sprayed by a human".
Hektor has also been used to help create a work of art by Cornel Windlin in an exhibition held at the Zurich Kunsthaus gallery.
