2010-11-08

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Science Museum gets a new angle on image processing

Bradford, UK, 8 November 2010 – The revamp of the ‘Who Am I?’ exhibit at London’s Science Museum has broken new ground in terms of an interactive visitor experience – thanks to the ability of Calibre UK’s PremierViewProHD Image Warp Processors to warp and blend incoming video signals, while retaining absolute signal quality.

An interactive exhibit that explores brain science, genetics and what makes us who we are, ‘Who Am I?’ was first opened in 2000 but has now been completely overhauled to reflect the latest scientific research. At the heart of the new-look exhibit is ‘Me3’, a multi-element interactive experience divided into Central Exhibit, Threshold, and Backdrop zones.

Calibre image processing lies at the heart of the extraordinary Threshold zone, which forms a dramatic entrance to the gallery featuring moving coloured particles that are constantly projected onto the floor of a long ‘catwalk’ with seamless projection. Visitors are ‘drawn’ along the floor by the colours and, as they approach the wall at the end, a concealed camera captures the infra-red reflections given off by each individual. These are then translated into a personal, particle-based image that runs down the wall and onto the floor, mimicking each body’s movement in real time.

Five Panasonic 6000 series projectors are positioned out-of-sight and driven at angles to fulfil the project brief of seamless imaging moving along a horizontal and then a vertical surface, but this created a challenge for systems integrator Sarner, according to the company’s Head of Engineering, Chris Hawes.

“At the time we tendered for the project, there was no solution on the market capable of achieving a seamless vertical and horizontal video wall with 180degree interaction,” Hawes explains. “Fortunately, by connecting PremierViewProHD Image Warp Processors from Calibre to each of the projectors, we were able to warp the projected images and blend them back into shape to create a single, continuous image. Visitors are able to walk within 1.9m of the wall without affecting the projection at all.”

The projection of coloured particles continues in the Central Exhibit zone of Me3, where a large interactive table brings visitors together to investigate what makes them unique. This zone is linked to Backdrop - a large (18 x 4m) videowall that uses the data input by visitors on the tables to create unique images. A further

Calibre UK Ltd Cornwall House, Cornwall Terrace, Bradford, BD8 7JS, UK Telephone +44 1274 394125, Fax +44 1274 730 960, sales@calibreuk.com www.calibreuk.com

four Panasonic 6700 projectors are used here, but the requirement that they should be out-of-sight obliged Sarner to position them off-axis. Without Calibre’s PremierViewProHD Image Warp Processors, the result would have been an image distorted into a trapezoid.

“Our PremierViewProHD Image Warp Processors take the projected images, warp them electronically back into shape, and then edge-blend them to produce a single, clean, wide-screen image,” says Tim Brooksbank, Chairman at Calibre UK. “The end result is a very impressive wide-screen projection that visitors approach to within 2.5m before shadows start to appear along the bottom edge of the image.”

And Brooksbank concludes: “our Sales and Technical team said it was a pleasure to work alongside the engineers at Sarner to come up with a solution to what was a very challenging project. We’re delighted that the warping and blending capabilities of our PVProHD processor have been used in such a creative and visually involving way, and look forward to them being deployed in many equally striking applications in the future.”

The All-in-One LED display will be exhibited in Coretronic Booth# K416 at Touch Taiwan Display International 2019 from August 28^th to 30^th, located at 1F, TaiPei Nongong Exhibition Hall 1.