edgeblending on a cone

[gillekes]

Hello everybody,

Is it possible to do an edgeblending with four video projectors on a cone using the catalyst on a latest gen mac pro with two tripple head to go? we would have a continuas background image. We would open 4 pip with all the same image. The pip have to maintain a 4/3 ratio.
The cone is made of a 8mt diameter truss cirkel on top and 2mt on the bottom. the 2 cirkels are connected with a stretch fabric which will give us the projection area.

Another idea is to use globe with a 6m diameter. I have the same questions with the globe (edgeblending wit 4 pip etc)

What would be the most practical?

Thanks

Gilles Libert

[Marty Postma]

Not too sure about the cone, but as long as the angles are not overly extreme, it should be able to manipulate the blending curve to match with keystone as a curved mix.

It depends a bit on how the cone is being split up into projection zones as well....I would assume 4 across vertically and wrapped?

But as for Triple-Heads.....if there are only 4 projectors, then only one Triple-Head is needed....this will get three signals through one video output port, and the fourth will go out by itself from the second.

Make sure to have at least the ATI Radeon x1900XT video card with 512 MB to handle the processing of the Triple-Head.

Go for maximum blend overlap as well to get the best results on a curved projection surface.

I would recommend doing some sort of mock-up to try this to see if it does exactly what you need.

Hope this helps

[SourceChild]

I agree with Marty on sever

• Setting Max overlap
• Using 1 TH2G
• Make sure you're using an x1900.
• Create a scale mock up.

al points.

I will tell you though. Keep your projectors on Axis with the slope of the cone. This will make the bend work better. I also strongly recommend you using the curved screen option in addition to just the keystone. You'll need it to get the blend right.

As for the TH2G...
I use the Digital TH2G boxes. I can set them to output only 2 screens each (2048x768). When I run 4 screens, I do this to balance the GPU processing and memory utilization. However, Marty is right in that you only need and should only use one unless you are doing it the way I recommend. Believe me, it is perfectly fine to run 3072x768 on one output and 1024x768 on the second.

Doing your test...
I have a shop full of spandex. I also have about a dozen old Sony 2k projectors. Most of these have burned LCDs so I'll never use them in a show environment but for prototyping, they rock. I typically build everything on a 10th scale and then replicate exactly what I built to scale on the final. If you do curved screens, this is almost a must. It's also much easier to do your rough bezier settings in a shop where your not burning the labor or venue rental clock.

Another suggestion. Create a decorative cap over your end seam. Do this so you don't have a nasty hard edge between projectors since you cannot blend the 1st projector to the last. This is just a thought though.

[Improve]

Hello everybody,

Is it possible to do an edgeblending with four video projectors on a cone using the catalyst on a latest gen mac pro with two tripple head to go? we would have a continuas background image. We would open 4 pip with all the same image. The pip have to maintain a 4/3 ratio.
The cone is made of a 8mt diameter truss cirkel on top and 2mt on the bottom. the 2 cirkels are connected with a stretch fabric which will give us the projection area.

Another idea is to use globe with a 6m diameter. I have the same questions with the globe (edgeblending wit 4 pip etc)

What would be the most practical?

Thanks

Gilles Libert

Hi Gilles,

My first question would be, what height do you give the cone... All projectors have native 4x3 aspects, so the hight of the cone has to be taken into account for asking yourself how many projectors would be needed. I allways try to calculate it a bit with pixels in height and width... My feeling is that with this cone four projectors is absolutely minimum... At the bottom, 2 mtrs round is really small to do with 4 projectors, considering the 8 mtrs at the top..

You definitly should use the curved screen option and make sure your projectors have an overlap of 20% (if possible). With less overlap it becomes harder to create a seamless blend...
I did a 360 panorama last year and managed to create a full blend all around. Content was created in a way that both sides matched...

Using PIPs in a 4x3 aspect is off course no problem... Catalyst always keeps the aspect of the content..

Hope this helps you setting up your equipment....

[gillekes]

hello and thanks to everybody.

I'll try it out before talking to my cliente. Anyway, They're not giving me enough time to do the job. so i can't not accept it. But i'm gonna try it out any way.

Greetz

Gilles