Travelling to NAB this year got me really excited. Not only was it my first trip to Las Vegas, but I had been promised to get to see our so called “hologram” technology in person.
Just across the isle STATS (Vizrt partner) had built their “cage” that would feature their highly acclaimed ‘hologram-effect’ for news and entertainment and SportVU technology. Combined with our virtual studio technology and extremely powerful 3D rendering engine things slowly came to life.
STATS anchor inside the cage
According to my personal recollection it took STATS some 3 days to setup the cage with their green screen and surrounding HD cameras. The same amount of time was also used to setup and test our virtual studio; hence, the final go for testing between the two setups was limited.
Vizrt Viz Virtual Studio
Our own Jonathan Watson (Art Director at Vizrt) was, as usual, the designated anchor for the show’s center stage. As the image to the right depicts (LCD screen) the “hologram” solution was working early on in the test phase.
During the entire show (3,5 days to end) the hologram was running smoothly. Holding a show every hour, 9 times a day, the technology proved to be solid and in the end a proven concept. Of course there were glitches, but considering that everything happened on a show floor with limited time for setup and test, and with hundreds of vizitors on the booth at all time … the “hologram” was a definite success!
Hopefully I will get the chance to go back another year to see more of the exciting technology provided by our partners and ourselves …
Shotuku crane with Panasonic camera and Thoma's Walkfinder (white balls) with a Sony camera