A Wider Net

Not since Vari-Lite introduced moving lights to rock concerts back in the 80’s with bands like Genesis has there been a major shift in the way we light big events. Not until the recently, that is, with the introduction of super-bright LED lighting instruments that produce rapidly changing brilliant colors and cool low energy consumption operation. Going away fast are the tungsten halogen, xenon, and metal-halide fixtures that each generate enough heat to cook a steak and consume more power than an industrial air conditioner (unfortunate, considering the heat thing).

Now there’s a whole slew of LED-based lighting fixtures for large events in all different shapes, sizes, and functions. The new High End Systems Showpix is one new entry that, had it entered on April 1st, I would have dismissed as a joke for fools. This moving head lighting instrument is rather large at 3 feet by 2 feet, and hernia-heavy at 108lbs. It contains 127 of the big 3 Watt LED elements on it’s face, allowing it to produce dazzling color washes and blinding strobe effects. This is the biggest, and most expensive, moving head washlight fixture you can buy (I think).

That’s because it is way more than a washlight. Some maniac at High End Systems decided to enable those 127 LED’s spread across the face of the fixture to produce moving images like a low resolution video wall or a super-expensive robotic lite-brite. It’s kind of like a lighting “sprite”, if you remember your early computer graphics terms. So you have this moving light that can face the stage and wash it with lovely color, then turn towards the audience and produce a smile, or a peace sign, or a logo, or a letter - whatever you want. The fixture has it’s own media server on board, which partially explains the $16,500 pricetag. Scissor lifts and burly union crews are extra.

Why do you need an array of light fixtures hung over your stage that can spell “George Bush is an Idiot?” Well, obviously, you don’t, because that’s quite clear, but when WOULD you need this ability?

To tell you the truth, I’m not completely sure. I see it as a very cool fixture to place in a grand hallway or foyer at a conference center, painting the ceilings and walls with light then suddenly turning to the audience and displaying a message or logo. This fixture can appear to have a personality and a playful one at that. I would put it front-and-center and give it the chance to be a character all by itself. From there, if you do have a stage show that needs something more than moving lights and video screens, this might be a twofer solution that gives you a versatile light palette AND a versatile effects palette all in one. Hang a dozen of these instead of a dozen plain washes and a dozen LED display specials.

I also like the idea of putting two of them in a foyer on a remote control, using them as ceiling washlights, then turning them both towards the crowd, displaying big eyeballs on them, and following people as they walk by. Creepiness has legs.

WindowGain, based in Newton, MA., has developed a unique model around outdoor video billboards. They have gathered ideas from event/staging companies, digital signage networks, retail displays, and billboard ad sales, then greatly extended the practices and technology to create a first of it’s kind network of large-scale daylight-visible video billboards. There are lessons here for everyone in the marketing, exhibit, and advertising industries.

The opportunity: WindowGain realized there are plenty of empty storefront windows around the country that create inexpensive opportunities to place content in busy public locations. They needed a way to get great quality content on those surfaces, keep them constantly changing, and keep the costs reasonable.

The technology: They needed very bright images and a system of distributing content to multiple locations. Similar to the edge-blending techniques that are being used for large scale video projection at corporate events, they created their own blending and warping technology that allows them to combine multiple video projectors to seamlessly produce massive High-Definition images with twice the light output of any single projector on the market. Arrays of smaller projectors have other big advantages: They tend to be cheaper to buy and maintain than big single projectors and they require a fraction of the projection distance so they can fit in tight storefront window-sized spaces. Once they had the image projection problem solved, they created their own digital signage software that allows them to distribute content to all the signs in their network. Similar to the big signage platforms, they can mix media - video, flash, powerpoint, and live feeds - and combine different content types onto one screen. They can tailor the content by time of day, day of week, time of year, and location. It sounds like a very comprehensive solution.

The most popular storefront signage solution that I have seen uses see-through holographic screens, which do not block the windows for visitors trying to look through the window. But they tend to be small screens, since most holographic screens are only available in smaller sizes, and because they are semi-transparent, they can look quite cluttered if the area behind the screen is brightly lit. WindowGain has solved these issues by targeting windows that no one uses anyway and using solid screen materials.

Content creation: While they accept content from automatic feeds and from customer’s agencies, they also produce content for customers upon request. Their ability to automatically receive and publish content from data feeds also means that these displays can provide information such as news, stocks, weather, and scores that viewers will appreciate in return for having to look at the big advertisements.

The result: They have created a network of high profile high quality digital signage opportunities that they sell to advertisers - local, national, and global. They have also taken dull empty windows and filled them with brilliant images, breathing life into a busy business district. This is a great story about finding ways to reach people, overcoming technical obstacles, and delivering something attractive in place of emptiness.

I suspect the people from this thread will have something to say about the possibility of lots of big video displays around the city, but I personally love the idea. I think that as long as they can maintain a minimum level of visual quality and appropriateness for a public space, and mix it up with artistic elements that people find attractive, then the lack of precision targeting will be forgiven and the visual improvement to the area much appreciated.

This holoCube 3D display looks like it will be worth a first-hand look. 3D is precisely one better than 2D, after all.

I’m considering it a probable no-brainer for PoP and Exhibits.

And the retro styling brought back memories of Logan’s Run and the whole curvy 70’s. What’s “old futuristic” is “new futuristic” again.

Reactrix, a gesture-based interactive signage company who is best known for their permanent interactive floor installations in malls all over the USA, partnered with Samsung at CES to showcase a new product called WAVEscape. Clearly a competitive offering to Gesturetek’s Gestpoint, the WAVEscape appears to be considerably easier to stage. You simply hang a 3D Infrared sensor bar above the screen and you’re ready to go (I think). The sensor can detect hands and fingers in 3D so it can react to motion such as a horizontal sweep or a forward point, which it would probably interpret as a mouse click. It appears to work with several people at once.

The video at Gizmodo makes it look fairly decent, although it suffers from the same awkward lag that Gesturetek’s products can have when the application isn’t well-tuned. They demonstrate the device being used in a “box the panda game” (has PETA seen this?), a traditional point-and-click application, and virtual volleyball.

As a method for creating a compelling interactive experience, with one or more participants, this looks like another promising offering. Is it as intuitive and slick as Microsoft Surface? Not even close - but it can service a larger crowd, will probably work through storefront windows, and is much easier to hang on a wall. It is also much easier to keep clean!

CNET has a nice article about it, too.

This 52″ Multitouch screen that LG/Philips showcased at CES appears at first to trump the Microsoft Surface product, at least in terms of a multitouch interactive display device. Surface is a coffee table, whereas this is a wall-mount display. Surface is, again, a coffee table, and this is a flat panel display. They both offer multi-touch. But when you watch the video below you notice several big differences. The surface interface demos have been optimized for intuitive behavior. If you place your hand on an image and drag your hand it moves the image with your hand. In the LG/Philips demo, the hand movements of the presenter and the google earth images on display are not intuitively connected. Also, he regularly struggles with the interface which is the exact opposite experience of Surface. Frankly, I could have brought up the images he requested far faster with a traditional mouse and keyboard, so what’s the point?

The Surface team has been very careful to make sure they design applications that use the technology effectively and appropriately. They step back and ask themselves “could I do this as well or better with a mouse and keyboard or a traditional touch screen?” and “Am I adding value or adding to the experience with this technology”.

The best part of seeing this video is the fact that other companies are getting inspired to join the party. Multi-touch interfaces are a big part of our man-machine interface future, and like the iPhone, Surface is creative very positive activity in the research labs of their competitors. Now I think they need to pick up the pace!

Thanks again, Engadget.

Intended for gamers, I’m loving the vision of this as a demo station at an exhibit:

From Engadget. They have video, too.

Billboardom covered these great video billboards/digital signs that feature the character in one billboard hucking a snowball at the character in the other billboard. Good clean fun. And very achievable with multiple screens in your exhibit, your lobby, the hallways of a trade show, or on the screens of Times Square. Just think outside the boxes.

I just learned about kameraflage, a company/technology/technique that creates images that can only be seen through digital cameras. This has some very interesting applications for marketing, communications, and exhibit design.

For starters, check out their applications page, which covers some great ideas right off the bat. In this section, they illustrate how to use the hidden messages as captioning for the hearing impaired. This way, no special devices need to be handed out. The drawback of having to watch through a camera may be acceptable for short presentations.

They also illustrate hidden billboards - an idea I once had using lasers and special filtering paper glasses. This one is far cooler since it relies on technology that almost everyone carries with them. You can use this to create hidden messages that act as billboards, as shown in the illustration below, or are used as part of a scavenger hunt for kids at a theme park or grown-up-kids at a corporate outing.

And finally, they illustrate garments with hidden images or messages that only appear when shot through a camera.

Not shown is a sort of copy protection, which would prevent people from videotaping or photographing a movie, exhibitor or concert.

I also wonder if someone will use this for some dirty fun by projecting images on a stage at, say, a political rally that can only be seen by the thousands of digital cameras in the crowd.

I’m not sure how available this technology is or, for that matter, how proprietary it is. Regardless, the idea of projecting images that can only be detected with a camera phone sounds pretty cool to me.

Sunrise Systems of Pembroke, MA, a leading manufacturer of custom and semi-custom LED signs, recently launched their semi-transparent LED curtain product shown below. Unlike the LED curtains of their competitors, this product is very transparent and looks great at shorter distances. Also, because it’s optimized for permanent installations, it has the right set of hardware to look nice up close - it’s a great architectural product.

I would consider this a nice piece in a large atrium, museum, or in a large trade show exhibit. This is an attractive, elegant LED product.

You can see more on their website, which is a little frustrating to navigate in Firefox - IE recommended.

Vizoo, a Danish A/V Production company specializing in 3D illusions, created tremendous buzz for their trendy fashion client Diesel. Models would walk the runway, surrounded by eerie blue floating images, mostly underwater elements such as jellyfish and turtles. The effect was stunning, creating an environment aptly titled “liquid space”.

The illusion was created by projecting onto transparent screens they called “foils”, which are probably either partially reflective acyrilic sheets or holoscreens. Technically, neither of these are truly “holograms” but that doesn’t change the fact that they achieved something stunningly beautiful. Sometimes it’s the elegant, creative use of simple technology on a grand scale that creates the most impact. Consider the Bellagio fountains as proof - an array of water jets that, by themselves, are not very impressive, but collectively choreographed by the artists at Wet Design, they create a world-class destination attraction.

That’s what we’re looking at - an effect that is usually smaller and decades-old - the “Peppers Ghost” effect. We’re seeing this simple and classic effect used on a scale so massive and in a manner so compelling, it is now totally new, and totally wicked. This sort of approach can work in many ways for creating impact at an event. Arrays of simple elements, painstakingly choreographed, can create a versatile environment and an unforgettable experience. For example, recently one company found a tiny remote-controlled water valve, bundled dozens of them together, and created a waterfall that can spell messages in mid-air out of water drops.