Cuelight Interactive Pool Table

OK, so anyone who is reading this knows that I am not the most up to date "blogger". I guess I am more of a Slogger, which could mean:

slacker-blogger
slow-blogger
slog-blogger

Either way, I got scooped on my own product. This time, it is fine with me, cuz it is everywhere else.

Basically, we created a new way to play pool with interactive video. Check it out, its called Cuelight, from Obscura Digital. Check it out here:

http://www.obscuradigital.com/pool



other links:

Gadgets - WSJ.com: Obscura CueLight Pool Table Is $200000 Wow…
Obscura CueLight Pool Table Is $200000 Worth of Fancy [Billiards] ... badass animations while you play pool, the Obscura CueLight is for you. ...

Wall Street Journal coverage

Add'l Cuelight Coverage:

Video:

CrunchGear
Neatorama

Images:

Design Blog
Gizmodo
Born Rich
Cool Buzz
Official Tech news
MyBlogLog

Hard Rockin multi-touch wall - Las Vegas

They say the economy is down in Vegas, but the Hard Rock Cafe opened this weekend with a nod to the future of technology in retail environments. Along with some interactive in-booth experiences, some Surface tables (see below), the centerpiece of the technology is our latest 18' x 4' multi-user, multi-touch wall.



The display is possibly the world’s highest resolution interactive display available to the public. We have been working on this for a while, and while others have tried similar sizes/resolutions, this is the real deal.

The basics are 3 HD projectors behind an 18 foot multi-touch wall. The difference here is that the whole thing is one 6000 (almost, it is actually 3x1920 projectors, so it is a bit less)pixel plate, with over 100 4K-6K images/videos being displayed at one time. No "deep zoom" needed, everything is real-time. Also unique is the way we scale across GPUs seamlessly.



to....



The display intelligently allocates room for up to 6 users, but if only one or two are using it, they each get half. if a third steps in, the workspace is dynamically allocated.

Users can search by genre of music, type of item, year, type of music and location of the actual piece of memorabilia.

We worked with TechnoMedia Solutions to provide an audio system that allows for true isolated sound for each user. We also collaborated with the Hard Rocks Ad Agency Duncan Channon to maintain brand and style guides. They also buit the in-booth and Surface experiences for the space. See them here Great team.

Obscura Digital 7 Channel display of HD mapped back onto outdoor plaza

So this was a really sweet project. Ricky and the boys hoisted 5 20K Christies up to the 4th floor balcony overlooking the plaza. The other two were stacked away on the ground and off at a 40 degree angle from the smaller building.



The media we created was designed to work directly with the architecture and synchronized to a music track created by our own Alex Oropeza. Some of the new guys did some really amazing work with the media, and the FireFrame software did the trick by synchronizing and blending all the projectors and fitting it perfectly with the old SF Mint building.

The project was commissioned by one of our clients, McAfee, who are great to work with and really creative.

Anyway, the project was amazing and may tour. Dunno.

Officially Blogging from the sky

Alright, so this is not really a "blog", because i dont update it daily or whatever defines a blog, but today, I blog! Currently at 35,000 feet over Denver (thanks to $12.95 and gogointernet) with thunderstorms making this the bumpiest ride ever, the flight attendents have been strapped in for an hour now, so I am going to take this opportunity to blog from the sky. I may even Tweet later, but that is still to be decided.

The reason for the post is because I am just returning from NYC having worked with Google/Youtube Creative Labs, Michael Tilson Thomas and the YTSO to create the first surround projection classical symphony at Carnegie Hall. Check it out. This piece is by Mason Bates. Gotta watch it in HD.



We used 8 Projectors to cover the entire inside of the hall, which has never been done before. The result was stunning. We designed all the visuals to accompany the music conducted by MTT.

Here is Flight of the Bumble Bee in SD. Ill post HD later...it was great..

Not quite outta the lab, but outta the country....

This is one of our coolest projects that we had to work on last year. The big challenge was how to light-up a skyscraper in downtown Seoul with 4 HD 30K Roadies and not project in the windows of the office workers. Couple that with the fact that we needed to shoot the projection from a little deck about 100 feet away, and at an an angle of 70 degrees. Hard. We built some really cool climate controlled enclosures, got with AVS and put some first surface mirrors with heaters on them and air-knives to shed the water/snow and produced a 12,000 sq. ft. video wall. 14 stories tall, 120 feet wide, 120,000 lumens of video. nice.




All in all, this turned into the highest resolution and possibly largest permanent video on the planet.



Untitled from patrick connolly on Vimeo.

I'm just getting around to posting this...

It has been a ridiculously busy few months. While I have been in a few countries, the guys in the lab have been putting together a few new projects that are kind of cool. This one actually uses our real-time 3D modeling engine to allow people to interact with a touch screen and drive the application. I guess what is pretty unique here is that this is taking actual CAD data out of .DXF/.DWG files and allowing people to manipulate them in real-time.





We call the application AirTouch. Although the user does touch the screen, the image kind of looks like it is in air.

Instead of some pre-rendered camera path or a “generally accurate” gesture input, this is actually rendering CAD @ 60Hz on the fly. Yes, it can do 120Hz for stereo, but that doesn’t translate well onto the web.


Anyway, we see some pretty big markets for this type of technology, including architecture, engineering, medical and even entertainment. Who knows, but as of today, it is a good way for people to take things from the virtual world and interact with them in the real world.

Oh, and it also works off of proximity detection as well (thanks Steve), so that you don’t need to actually touch anything to determine Z plane, so for you doctors out there, wanting to go through scans in real-time w/o touching anything, here ya go.

Been busy this month

Alright, this might not really be "out of the lab" stuff, but over the last month, we have done a few things that were pretty interesting. The thought was to take some of the stuff we already have and make it better. We did turn back to the boys in the lab to refine these, so it technically is "out of the lab", but more from an advancement standpoint.

The result are a few projects that we put together over the last month. Here is a quick look and an explanation of why they are cool...or, at least, why I think they are cool.

1. This is one of our standard 360 degree video domes, but the twist on this one is the content. we usually take a mix of CG and still imagery, as there is not a high-res source that can capture hemispherical. We crafted up this monster of a rig to shoot the world's first 4K hemispherical. Yup, that is a Nikkor 6mm on a RED ONE.




...And the result.

2. This is a pic of something we did for Google out at Fashion Week in NYC. It is using one of our standard multi-channel HD rigs, but the cool twist is that we embedded the screens behind mirrors and put it in a 3 sided box that was 10' tall. We used one of our 8 channel HD surround rig behind glass, which gave the appearance of having the imagery floating in space. We "interacti-fied" it by writing an iPhone app that let us drive the media, sequence and content from any of our phones.



3. Not being busy enough, we decided to take our multitouch technology to the next level by figuring out how to integrate our own "deep zoom" type of functionality into the app. Basically, we let people take a trip from space and drill down into a virtual tour of Dubai, all from the comfort of the Javitz Center. I would post a video, but I didn't go, so we don't have any video documentation of this thing. sucks.



Anyway, besides what we did for GM last year, this is the only other time I have ever seen a 6'x4' multitouch wall that the public could play with.

New VisionAire technology from Obscura

Here is the latest. Alright, alright, it is not really "multi-touch", because you really dont touch anything. The system just senses where the presenters hands are and allow him to interact. Multiple people could be doing this too.

We call it VisionAire. Get it, "vision" and "air" with a little European flair. Basically, we were looking for a new way to allow a presenter to interface with visual data. This uses our standard multi-touch framework and integrates it with the Musion system we have in house. The result is a truly interactive way to give presentations.



See for yourself.

Quick Studio Tour

There may be some audio issues with the guys down at CNet, but generally, it is a pretty cool little piece on us. Click here to watch the piece.

Not your grandpas QTVR

This may not look like much (unless you know what it is), but it is the latest example of real-time 3D modeling driven by one of our touch screens. The cool part of this type of thing is that the user is navigating through a 3D studio max file in real time. This is not pre rendered, it is outputting a 1400x1050 visualization that is driven by the touch screen. Note the zoom, pan and rotate feature. Lots 'o math going on here.


Basically, the guys wrapped the Max application in our FireFrame server and wrote hooks to render 60fps. This can work with any type of 3D model. The future of visualization has arrived, and is currently on sale in aisle 4 down at Obscura:-)

The best use of multi-touch I have seen yet

When I got back from the Google deal in NYC, the tech guys had set this up in the studio. I walked in to see Rooney G. going for a new high score. I thought it was cool, so I jumped in to help.

OK, it may be pretty lame, but this is actually a great use of multi-touch. Gaming and entertainment may be the logical commercial uses of this type of technology.



This retro game is given a new lease on life with this type of technology. Oh, and it also plays multiple streams of 720P video, but who is counting.

This was a tough one...

OK, so when we decided to do this with our client, we all kind of looked at each other and said "it can not be that hard". After all, our technology is rock-solid, the projectors are capable and it is "only" 250,000 sq feet of synchronized video, so how hard could it be? New York City, Meatpacking District, Spring time, it will be a breeze.

The way we designed it, we had 6 buildings and 12 surfaces that needed to be lit up. Challenges included (but were not at all limited to):

- The projectors were off angle by about 40 degrees from each surface
- We couldnt project in the windows of the buildings so that we didn't disturb hotel guests/patrons (get your head around that)
- There was a ton of ambient light, making projection difficult to see
- It was raining
- There was no power on the roofs
- Each projector had a custom lens solution to accomodate its throw/coverage
- Cranes were not available to move gear onto the roofs, so we had to use boom lifts
- There was no way to run cabling between buildings to carry video signal
- Projection surfaces consisted of brick, glass, steel and cobblestone
- Did I mention that it was raining?

Our solution was to use the state of the art 30,000 lumen projectors with our FireFrame servers to make up a 24,000 pixel composition. 20 projectors, 4 locations, 1 mile apart and 6 stories up: difficult. That, combined with the aforementioned "issues", made the challenge monumental.

Well, our friends in the city of NYC were actually very cooperative and we got the whole thing permitted and arranged in about 3 weeks. Sure, we had a few obstacles to get around but when it came time to hit the magic "go" button, it all worked out flawlessly.

The art community of NYC turned out in force for the launch of the iGoogle product, and was in awe of our production.

If anyone wants to hear the real challenges (the ones listed were trivial in comparison), please drop me a note. Thanks to Google for actually believing that this could happen (and funding it) and my friend Hashem for setting it up from the git-go.





Wheeew, it worked and was a rockin success.

2πr² never looked so good

I had to think back to high school geometry to figure out how large this projection screen was. 2*3.14159* Radius squared. I think i got a B, so I may be wrong, but i came up with 13,288 square feet of video...now thats a pretty big screen. It appears even bigger when it is wrapped around you. That is how big this screen was that we used for Nakheel, arguably the World's most creative real estate developer.

The idea was to provide an environment where the company could immerse their audience in their brand and the new Blue Communities initiative. It would also serve as an environment to announce their latest development, The Universe.

This video dome was 3' larger than Google, so it was, and is, the world's largest video dome. We used 14 Christie HD video projectors and our FireFrame servers to put this piece of technology together. It was up for over a month in Dubai, and served as a theater for all of Nakheel's visitors.

We incorporated a new audio system too, this time using 8 channels of discrete audio running through a new set of Meyers….Surround never sounded so good.

Holographic kiosks for GM at the NAIAS

Yeah, its been a while since the last post. I've been kinda busy. We just got back from Detroit, where we put together a really cool display for GM that consists of 5 interactive holopro kiosks integrated with 70 linear feet of holographic glass behind the kiosks. The result was that when people were using the kiosks, the walls behind them lit up with complimentary media, kinda like that Tom Cruise movie that everyone talks about...what's it called?

GM...green?!?

OK, you may not think "green" when you think of the guys that make the Hummer, but that is a perception that they would like changed. The fact is, GM has one of the largest corporate responsibility "green" programs in the world. Not only are they developing vehicles that run more efficiently, use less fuel and produce fewer emissions, but they are focused on clean and renewable energy in all of their plants and corporate offices. I know, its hard to believe, and they were having a hard time communicating their message, so they turned to Obscura.



We developed a 3 siloed multi-touch display wall that allowed users to pick a feature that is interesting to them and drill down into the depths of content that GM has regarding that subject. The wall was divided up into "Plants and Facilities", "Vehicles" and "Environmental" sections.

The wall debuted at the GreenBuild show in Chicago in November, 2007, and is now on tour with GM on their nationwide awareness campaign to highlight the GM corporate responsibility message.

Wheeew, that is a big dome

OK, so Google came to us and wanted us to build an environment that would blow away their VIP guests at their annual Zeitgeist conference. We came up with a 90 foot diameter video dome. This was only for a one evening event, so it had to be amazing. We sent photographers and videographers to the ends of the Earth to capture the most amazing content that nature could dish up.

The video dome used 11 Christie S+20K projectors synchronized and blended through our servers. The surface was over 12,000 square feet, which is a screen just shy of an entire football field of solid video. This was the worlds largest, full surround video environment ever created. Chalk up another worlds first for the kids at Obscura.

Tech Expo at Obscura

So, we got together with our production partner InVision Communications to showcase some of our technologies to our clients. Chk out the video to see what kind of stuff we threw out there.

X-Ray car projection

So I am bringing this one back out of the closet in light of some of the new attention that has been brought on this technology. AdAge just did a quick profile on us All the World is Your Video Screen. It is a pretty cool article that really highlights our vision that media can be displayed almost anywhere.

As with a lot of our more fun projects, we worked with Goodby Silverstein and Partners out here in SF. Together, we were just awarded a New York Festivals 2007 Gold WorldMedal for Alternative & Innovative Media: Video Projections, which is nice.

Also, this exhibit won a Silver Clio Award and a Silver OneShow for this project.

AdAge also did a feature on Obscura’s Projects Why You May Be Using X-Ray Vision the Next Time You Go Car Shopping -- High-Tech Display Tools Become Affordable for Dealers, Other Retailer

Anyway, I think the video is a great example of both of the AdAge articles and really gives a look into the future of marketing and advertising.

HP at the D5 Conference WSJ

We got the call from our friends at Goodby Silverstein & Partners to put together something totally unique for HP at the Wall Street Journal's D conference. The concept was to create the largest interactive screen and to create an additional installation piece inside of the conference to add a digital environmental effect.

We came up with two of the coolest installation pieces we have done. The first was the world's largest multi-touch screen with dynamic content. The second and equally as challenging was an integrated projection and LCD environment that was set up temporarily in the hotel.

Big shout out to Darren David, without whom this project would not have been possible. He programmed the WPF framework for the UI on the interactive canvas to integrate with our backend and screens.

Vids of those are below.

Interesting Projection Mapping mixed with Holograms

So, here is something you don't see every day. Here we have mapped projection to some columns in the warehouse and integrated it with some of our holograms. This is just a test to see how we can blend 2 projectors across a surface and then integrate content across that 2K pixel surface.