The temporary 25m white dome was constructed at Potter's Fields Park on London's Southbank for two weeks as part of the official Year of Mexico in the UK celebrations. Inside, the Mexican Tourism Board pop-up featured a huge projection mapped dome, where images of the country's rich cultural and natural heritage swirled above visitors' heads.
RES's Mark Calvert worked closely with LM Productions' Tim Kingsmill and Stephen Harvey to supply an Avolites Ai EX8 Pro 2 media server running the latest software - Ai V8 - which features the powerful new Autoblend feature. This feature uses a camera-based warp and blend tool set, allowing multiple projectors to blend images for projection.
"This was an ambitious project, using six Barco 20,000 Lumen projectors and the EX8 Ai server running the latest software tool set to drive the seamless visual content and blend it onto the inside of the large dome above the heads of visitors," says Calvert. "The projectors were positioned all the way around the periphery of the inside of the dome, cross-projecting to the opposite side of the dome to create a very large, single seamless image. We were very pleased LM Productions came to RES for the system purchase and we look forward to working with their team in the near future."
Stephen Harvey, owner of LM Productions, comments, "After looking in the marketplace for the next generation media server and visualizer we went for the Ai EX8 Pro 2. The first project was quite a complex full dome mapping project on a 25m dome and I have to say the blends were really amazing. Having used a number of high quality media servers over the years, Ai really stood head and shoulders above the others and we look forward to working on some amazing projects using the new Ai servers."
Tim Kingsmill, LM Productions' production manager adds: "The Autoblend software not only makes the set up a lot quicker but the end result is simply outstanding. I have worked on a number of dome projects with 360 Degree projection but the immersive feeling you get when the blends are this good is incredible."
The Mexico dome installation was open from 25 February until 11 March 2015. RES also adds special thanks to Phil Mayer, who helped with the installation on site.
(Jim Evans)
