Editor’s Picks – I’m People Too!

It’s Good To Be The Boss

THE P.A. PEOPLE LED SCREEN MOTION AND MAPPING

Jason Allen, CX Magazine:

This is not a product per se, but a system that The P.A. People have created themselves. It’s hard to describe without video, but what they’ve created is a movement system for multiple LED screens that can fly left, right, up or down, combined with a media server taking their position information, which means that you can run video content that stays static in space, like it is being projected, while the screens move. It’s a mind-bending effect.

“Here, we’ve got two LED screens moving left and right on a motion control system,” explains Sam Dodds, Systems Engineer at The P.A. People. “I have independent motors so I can drive them both separately. What’s really powerful about it is I can move the screens left and right and the content can stay still.”

“The way that we’re doing that is we’re dynamically rendering the content based on the 3D position of the screens. We start with the motion control console, which understands the 3D position in space. It has a 3D visualiser, so you can see things moving in space. If I move the LED screen sideways, it moves sideways in the 3D visualiser on the console. The console then sends the 3D position data directly to the media server over a protocol called PosiStageNet.”

“From the back of the console, there’s an Ethernet port and, over an Ethernet network, we go across to the media server, which in this case is disguise. The disguise server then picks up all that 3D data and then I can play with it. I have position data, velocity data, and rotation data. From that, I’m able to then dynamically link the position data to the screen, so that in the media server’s 3D visualiser, the screens are moving as the screens move in real life. And then from there I use a mapping called ‘parallel mapping’ in disguise.”

“The real power of that is it allows you to do live dynamic rendering without needing to time-code things. If you want to do a big reveal and have the content move in time with the screens, if you do that all with time code and anything goes wrong, it all looks like garbage. But with this system, if you have to hold for something, it just works because the actual rendering is based on the real-time physical position of the screens, not some pre-time-coded design.”

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MOVEKET VMW-S PERFORMER FLYING HOIST

The MoveKet VMW-S performer flying hoist is a truss-mounted, touring-grade portable performer flying hoist. It can shift a 125-kilogram payload at a top speed of 3 metres per second. It is perfect for arenas, theatres, and any sort of performer flying. Its custom truss frame means you can integrate it into a 500 mm box easily in touring shows.

Jason Allen, CX Magazine:

“There are some clever high-end features in the VMW-S, including the fact that its truss is not welded. It’s all machined and pinned together, so there’s no weld inspection to do as part of its maintenance routine. It’s fully self-contained, with twin silent brakes, and you can’t hear it run. It’s designed to mount in any orientation, so you can have it upside down, the right way up, left, or right. It has a built-in load cell, built-in encoders, and all the safety features you need to do proper performer flying.

It can output position data, which you can send to a media server or lighting console to have moving heads track a performer, or to have motion effects triggered. You can send the position data to other systems and do all sorts of clever, creative things.”