Photo Courtesy: Randall Overby Photography- http://www.randalloverbyphotography.com

The General Idea

My friend and co-worker, Myron Surber approached me a little over a month ago and told me his church was needing some LED tape to put on a wall for a worship event the last weekend in February. I almost started looking through our sale system, and got ready to show Myron what kinds of tape we could get, when I had the thought, "Projection." I mentioned this to Myron, and he asked me to talk to Phil at the church about it. Then we decided to go the projection mapping route.

The upstage was made out of three panels with a raised concentric diamond pattern on it. The two outer sections of the wall were 14 feet wide by 12 feet tall. The center section was 22 feet wide. Then we'd place three short throw projectors, one of each part of the wall. Then we'd use software to supply the images and content. We'd also use the software to mask out the raised surfaces of the wall so that the projected images would only show on the recessed, or valleys of the wall

Photo Courtesy: Randall Overby Photography-  http://www.randalloverbyphotography.com — Photo Courtesy: Randall Overby Photography- http://www.randalloverbyphotography.com

The Signal Path

The video signal path for this project was a 15" MacBook Pro feeding a Matrox Triple Head 2 Go. The Triple Head sort of "tricks" the computer into thinking it has a triple-wide monitor attached. For example, if you had three 1920 X 1080 monitors attached, you now can output one extra-wide image that is 5760 pixels wide. The Triple Head then fed three NEC UM351W short throw projectors.

Check back soon for part two which will talk more about the software!

~Andy