 |
|
 
|
|
|
Sign up now for your FREE subscription to the interactive digital magazine.
|
|
Digital projection brings "thinking outside the box” to a whole new level
By Jim Crawford
Digital signage is hardly a new idea in retail design. In fact, many of us have had the experience of walking through a store and, upon seeing a particularly clunky kiosk or blocky plasma TV bolted onto a fixture, thought to ourselves, “2003 called and wants its digital signage back.”
The biggest problem isn’t digital signage as a concept. It’s the tools designers think of as digital signs. The core underlying technologies that power visual displays have shifted radically in the past decade, yet somehow our vision for applying those technologies to retail design remain stuck in the past.
But a new concept has arrived that opens a number of doors for today’s store designers if applied in innovate ways: digital projection. Recent advances in this technology have pushed the capabilities of digital projectors in two paradoxical directions, as the big have gotten bigger and the small have gotten smaller.
Big & bold
First, let’s look at the big. Today’s larger-format projectors are capable of ultra-high resolution projection with enough light to show clearly in all but the brightest sunlight. When combined with the sophisticated 3-D rendering capabilities of today’s computers, designers now have at their disposal “digital paint” that can be overlaid on both interior and exterior surfaces.
What makes this such an intriguing concept for designers is that unlike previous projection that showed on a screen (either a 4:3 or 16:9 widescreen), digital paint appears directly onto the environmental surface. It’s not constrained to a rectangle-box shape. This means that unique geometries, like curves and corners, can be digitally painted, blurring what’s digital and what’s physical into a seamless design.
One recent high-profile example of digital paint was introduced into Walt Disney World’s iconic fireworks display over Cinderella’s castle. A Disney-based story is projected onto the front of the castle from a group of high-definition projectors. The scenes blend into the physical environment with characters climbing up towers and around windows and “fireworks” shooting across the front of the castle in concert with the real fireworks up in the sky.
Other designers have used digital paint on interiors to replace wallpaper and signage. Add enough projectors and you can even create a “Star Trek” holodeck-like experience where every surface around the viewer is digitally enhanced and immersive.
Small & streamlined
Did you enjoy this article? Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
