360° panorama

[GideonKiers]

Hello there,

We've been asked to supply the technological solutions to create a 360° video panorma for a semi-permanent interactive audiovisual installation in a museum. We will use 5x 720p projectors to make the panorama projection.

User interaction data (preferably through OSC, but DMX should be no problem) will be provided by a computer running custom software that analyzes a realtime feed from a thermographical camera in various ways.

At the moment it is unclear how the interaction will be used in the 'interactive storytelling'. It is however clear that a story should be told, using surround sound and panoramic video, with a certain degree of audience participation.

1. Essential in the suggestion of the 'seamless' panorama is to have it as frame sync as possible.
2. It is very likely there will be mixing of layers, crossfading A/B channels at a minimum. The same thing as 1. is important here, when crossfading A/B it should be as seamless as possible, preferably invisible, to keep the suggestion of a seamless panorama alive.
3. Sync start/stop/jump

etc.etc.

So on the one hand there's the necessity for a very steady sync of the various actions on the different outputs. On the other hand there's the 720p material, stereo sound on each output.

I have the feeling that the more computers one uses, the harder it becomes to keep it all sync. On the other hand, for the sake of smooth playback etc. I'd say that three machines with the following specifications should be able to do the trick :

2x 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
4GB (4x1GB)
NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 1.5GB
750GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
3x Mtron MSP-SATA7535-128 (128GB)

Or would one of these with two th2g be enough ?

thanks !

Gideon

[SourceChild]

Hey Gideon,

I have done exactly what you're talking about in a few different scenarios. For the short answer, syncing computers works just fine even if there are multiple computers.

If you would like more details and suggestions, please email me.

Todd
SourceChild@me.com
AIM or Yahoo: SourceChild

[samsc]

Hello there,

We've been asked to supply the technological solutions to create a 360° video panorma for a semi-permanent interactive audiovisual installation in a museum. We will use 5x 720p projectors to make the panorama projection.
Or would one of these with two th2g be enough ?

thanks !

Gideon

if you have 5 projectors-
you need to see how many machine you need to play 10 layers of your content - so you can dissolve

you might need more than one.

you need to test with content close to what you are intending on using.
codec performance depends on image complexity with AIC

also running 2 x th2g has been quite problematic with the current graphics cards - doesnt always work.

[GideonKiers]

Clear. I'm guessing we'd be a lot safer using at least two machines. The apple info page states that the data rate for AIC is about 7mb/sec for 720p30. Using two machines would also provide a bit more flexibility in the use of layers..

if you have 5 projectors-
you need to see how many machine you need to play 10 layers of your content - so you can dissolve

you might need more than one.

you need to test with content close to what you are intending on using.
codec performance depends on image complexity with AIC

also running 2 x th2g has been quite problematic with the current graphics cards - doesnt always work.

[Improve]

Hi Gideon,


Are you in Rotterdam right now?? We are in Delft.. So if you want to have a try with a couple machines, give me a call... Or maybe you want to discuss some more...

[SourceChild]

The apple info page states that the data rate for AIC is about 7mb/sec for 720p30.

There are a few posts in this forum which denote testing that has been done with different codecs and different sizes. The tests were done using Catalyst so under the circumstances it is a better choice to use the Catalyst reports instead of the Apple reports.