1. IN THE NEWS
OCTOBER 2016 • WWW.LSIONLINE.CO.UK34
Grand Projections
Singapore’s 51st National Day Celebrations featured the world’s biggest 360°,
real-time, tracking 3D projection mapping. Sara Jacobo reports for LSi . . .
Singapore - Singapore’s
recent National Day Parade
2016 marked the first of the
next 50 years of the country’s
independence - and the whole
nation began looking towards
the future with hope and high
expectations.
This year’s event was
celebrated with zeal at the
New Singapore National
Stadium. The National Day
Parade Multimedia Committee
(recruited the technical talents
of video display technologists
VYV and technical providers,
Hexogon Solution, to achieve
the world’s biggest 360°, real-
time, tracking 3D projection
mapping.
The Multimedia Committee
worked with Hexogon Solution
to find the perfect metaphor
for the success of the past 50
years and the potential of the
future. Kenny Wong, technical
director for the Committee,
said: “To symbolise this future,
the creative team has chosen
to create a vision of a city of the
future, which will be a floating
Sky City.”
The technical team created
a structure out of collapsible
fabric, representing a cityscape
of existing iconic buildings in
Singapore plus potential future
buildings. The building clusters
of Sky City were attached to
hoists anchored to the roof
of the stadium. They rose
from stage right before the
audience’s eyes and continued
to float off the stage. At full size,
the structure was 60m wide and
25m high, making it the largest
moving surface on which a
projection has been seen.
Kenny Wong added:
“However, we didn’t just want
to share a whimsical imagining
of the future, but rather show
a future that is rooted in the
values and principles that
has helped the people of
Singapore grow for the last 51
years. Therefore, the floating
Sky City transforms into a tree
of values when tree trunks
link the Sky City back to the
hundreds of performers on
stage representing the people of
Singapore and what they stand
for.”
Singapore’s National Day
Parade broke many other
records in the process of
achieving the world’s largest
360° 3D projection. Tracking
the largest free moving surface
area required the team to use 66
Christie Boxer 4K30K projectors;
250 VYV Copernic IR emitters
were embedded into the
surface, and a total of 99 scenic
items were independently
tracked for the duration of the
illumination. The number of
each product broke the record
for the highest number of items
used in each aspect of the
projection.
Adrian Goh, Group managing
director at Hexogon Solution,
said: “We are immensely
honoured to be part of
Singapore’s National Day
Parade for the 5th consecutive
year. The challenges faced
at this National Day Parade
were, firstly, the constraints of
having to map on empty space
without actual objects in the
initial mapping stage, and
secondly the short turnaround
time allocated for calibrating
and alignment on the complex
structures after they were
erected.”
The team at VYV helped with
the video technical design, and
manufactured and modified
most of the tools necessary to
create the whole projection.
They also provided a skeleton
crew on-site to complement
and assist Hexogon’s staff.
It took two months of work
on-site, prior to the event on 9
August, to pull the whole project
together, preceded by many
rounds of technical design
dating back to November 2015.
Eric Plante, general manager
at VYV, said: “The whole thing
went quite smoothly. Our
work on past projects, in
particular Miley Cyrus (2012) for
projection on moving surfaces
in challenging contexts, as well
as our work on The Han Show
(2014) for calibrating in large
open spaces, had us well-
prepared for this project. The
Sky City projection was definitely
the highlight of the show.”
To project onto the Sky
City, VYV used their Photon
Photo : Courtesy Glorious

2. WWW.LSIONLINE.CO.UK • OCTOBER 2016 35
video server and Albion stage
positioning server. The Photon
server was the optimum video
server for this event because
it displays video using an
unlimited number of projectors,
allowing uncompressed video
playback at up to 64 megapixels.
The projection of Sky City used
16 megapixels.
Adrian Goh added: “The
unpredictable on-site wind
conditions also played
a significant factor, as it
could have caused the fabric
structures to move and deform
as we map onto the structures.
This issue was greatly resolved
through our sophisticated state-
of-the-art VYV tracking system,
as it instantaneously calibrates,
renders and maps onto the
uneven moving surfaces.”
The Photon video servers
include a full previsualisation
system and can automatically
calculate the precise position,
orientation and lens parameters
of the 66 projectors in less than
55 minutes. Tracking projection
surfaces is an integral part
of Photon, which accepts
data from an Albion server to
track a projection surface’s
position, orientation and even
deformation.
VYV Photon worked
along with the Albion stage
positioning server to drive the
66 30,000-lumen Christie Boxer
projectors and made sure the
projection reached every angle
of the Sky City as it moved
and transformed into different
shapes. The Albion server is
designed to work well with
active emitters, such as VYV’s
Copernic Infrared emitters, and
to use its own tracking and
calibration algorithms designed
for unique challenges specific
to live shows.
Finally, to project onto
the moving structures, VYV’s
Copernic Infrared emitters
were embedded into the fabric
of the structure and precisely
positioned in 3D using VYV
Albion servers and 40 OptiTrack
cameras, modified by VYV and
distanced more than 100 meters
away. Content was then played
back onto these shapes at 16
megapixels of uncompressed
video and 3D blended between
projectors in real-time. A total of
8.7 billion projected pixels per
second were calculated using
103 teraflops of computing
power.
Kenny Wong concludes:
“The whole event was very
successful. The projected
images were able to track
in real-time the free moving
structures which swayed and
spun as they responded to the
breeze that blew across the
field-of-play. The audience was
amazed, as the structures were
lit-up and made more dynamic
with the video content.” I
P www.vyv.ca
Photo : Courtesy Glorious
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