The Nobbies Centre’s Antarctic Journey takes visitors places they’re never likely to go thanks to some immersive digital signage and AV.
IMMERSIVE SPACE
Like icebergs calving from the Wilkins ice shelf, eccentrically angled screens dot the Nobbies Centre’s Immersive Space allowing visitors to walk through and explore the footage at their own pace.
Taking care of the projections are Panasonic PT-RZ670 6500-lumen and PT-RZ470 3500-lumen laser light source projectors (depending on the size of the screen that needs filling), some fitted with ultra short throw lenses where required.
The content is being played out of Dataton Watchout systems, which take care of all the pixel mapping and image warping — of which there is plenty given the angles of the screens.
PLAYING WITH ORCAS
Bruce Brown: “People just love this exhibit. It’s an augmented reality package from a Belgian company. Originally it included penguins, seals and polar bears etc., and we engaged them to modify it, take out the polar bears — none of those south of the equator — and produce it to suit our needs.
“The sy stem uses an HD camera that sits above the screen and integrates your image in with the animation. The difference here is the size of the screen, which is enormous. We use two stacked Panasonic 670s with long-throw lenses. The images are perfectly superimposed and we get the extra image intensity as a result. The cost to produce a one-off augmented reality setup like this would have been prohibitive so we’ve licensed it.”
SEAFOOD DINNER
Seafood Dinner allows you to place a plate onto a menu item and read how sustainable it is (or isn’t). A Displax capacitive touch film sits underneath 6mm of Corian. A Panasonic PT-RZ475EA projector displays the image. “The Displax film turns this table into a large touchscreen,” notes Bruce Brown of Mental Media, which was the technical brains of the operation. “We had the film supplied in the correct size for the table. Displax is a Spanish company and I’ve been using the product for about eight years.”
Mental Media: (02) 9557 2011 or www.mentalmedia.com.au
Thylacine: www.thylacine.com.au
Panasonic: www.panasonic.com.au
Interactive Controls (Medialon): (02) 9436 3022 or www.interactivecontrols.com.au