QED Provide Roadster HD18k’s For Unique Toyota 3D Launch

Creative advertising agency glue Isobar created and produced the event, generating 90 seconds of dynamic visual animation for the projection. The sequence showed the body of the Auris transforming and peeling back to reveal a glowing blue energy, which then escaped and interacted with various objects within the tunnel where the car was situated. The energy then returned to the car, bringing to life the amazing way in which the Auris recycles its energy as it drives.

To achieve this remarkable effect required extremely high-powered projectors, as the surfaces being illuminated included concrete, brick and asphalt as well as the white pearlescent material of the car.

Colin Yellowley, Managing director of Igloo Vision, the software developers and designers responsible for the projection mapping, turned to Paul Wigfield at QED, and he recommended the Christie solution.

“We were contacted when Igloo were doing initial projector tests within the environment,” confirmed Wigfield. “They realised that they needed seriously bright, vibrant projectors particularly when the content moved from the car to the environment itself, which covered a much larger area. We initially thought they would need eight HD18Ks — but after carrying out a projection test we were able to achieve the effect with just four.”

The Roadster HD18K 3-chip DLP projectors suited the purpose to perfection. Light and bright (18,000 ANSI lumens) the HD18K offers high resolution, crisp images from 10-bit processing combined with an HD platform. It also features standard built-in edge-blend, two HD input channels, digital dark level adjustment, Intelligent Lens System™ on zoom and focus, and DMX 512 communication capabilities.

The four HD18K projectors were clamped to a scaffold tower using QED’s specialist flying frames. Fitted with 1.1:1 lenses, they flooded the entire tunnel, with the image blended within the source software.

Each projector took a feed from the Igloo PC in 1920 x 1080 native resolution. QED supplied four fibre lines which provided each projector with the DVI signal and full Ethernet control. “With the projectors being placed so high up, one concern was the stability of the projectors, which were mounted at a variety of angles,” explained Wigfield. “But we needn’t have worried, as the rigging design and implementation was extremely well planned and organized.”

The projection itself ran over one evening with 15-minute intervals between each ‘show’ — but Igloo’s real skill was in blending the background projections with the foreground (the car itself).

Summing up, Paul Wigfield said, “We always push the Roadster HD18K because it is the best and brightest single phase HD projector in the world, and from a budgetary viewpoint it was great that we were able to do the job with four, rather than the eight that had initially been estimated.”

Confirmed Colin Yellowley, “We carried out projection tests at our facility in Shropshire and knew we needed to project onto different surfaces. The HD18Ks were perfect for the task — particularly where the images butted up between the back wall and the pavement.“Without the Christies we couldn’t have used the whole environment as an immersive experience”. Given that they were working with 14,000 x 14,000 pixel renderings (over 2,500 frames), the exercise had been a complete success, he confirmed.

“Traditional geometry mapping on the side of buildings is so forgiving and doesn’t require 100% accuracy. But here everyone was getting up close and virtually interacting with the car so we couldn’t afford it to be grainy or pixelated.“In fact this was one of the most demanding geometry mapping exercises we have done, and one of the most complex I have seen anyone do in a live environment. I think it was completely unique.”

About Christie®

Christie Digital Systems Canada Inc. is a global visual technologies company and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ushio, Inc., Japan, (JP:6925). Consistently setting the standards by being the first to market some of the world’s most advanced projectors and complete system displays, Christie is recognized as one of the most innovative visual technology companies in the world. From retail displays to Hollywood, mission critical command centers to classrooms and training simulators, Christie display solutions and projectors capture the attention of audiences around the world with dynamic and stunning images.