Edge blend with moving panels

[cormac.conn]

Hi guys,

We have an event coming up that I need some advice on.

There will be three portrait style panels that are placed side by side that we will be projecting onto. At some point during the show, the centre panel will move forward, so the content will need to resize accordingly. This part is no problem. We will also be using the live inputs to run presentations off laptops, so we need to have the resolution as high as we can make it. Our plan was to use two projectors edge blended.

The issue that we have encountered is that when the panel moves forward, the edge blend of course goes out of sync. The two side panels are fine, but it's the moving one that causes the problem. Is there a way to compensate for this? We are using a STD Quad Server.

[Daniel Kaminski]

Hi,

that is a tough one. You are fighting physics.

You are creating a Projection Volume instead of a Projection Plane. Now you are fighting changing overlaps, changing pixelsize and Focus also.
So you will have to do the softedge depending on your relative position between panel and projector.
This is not easy at all and I am unsure how good the results will be.

One cheap way you could try is changing the softedge linear between the 2 positions. You can do that in Widget Designer. Put panel is Pos A. Create Softedge, Put Panel in Position B create Softedge.
The problem you run into is that the overlap changes.
You might end up using 2 Layers one routed to PJ 1 and 1 to PJ 2. Do the Softedge on the Layer. Because if you move forward you are also changing the overlap. That might be a easier solution.

If you want to automate it you will need to track the panels e.g. with ID-Tags and create a node system that does the softedge depending on the position.

The cleanest solution will be a single Projector. Maybe a 4k if you need the resolution. Not cheap, but it will look the best.

Daniel

[cormac.conn]

Thanks Daniel. It is a tough one alright! One idea I had was to utilise all four outputs. Output 1 & 2 would run the side panels with 2 x projectors. We would put a mask in the middle to blank out the middle part of the animation and then create the edge blend and leave it at that.

We would then run output 3 & 4 to another 2 x projectors. These would only run the animation for the moving panel. When the panel moves, we would set up key frames for the edge blend to move with it.

Unfortunately our server is on another event so we can't test it right now, so that's why I'm throwing these ideas out there, so we're ready for it.

[Daniel Kaminski]

Sounds like a workable solution.

Do not forget you will also need to change the overlap. the closer you get to the Projectors the less overlap you will have.
And you will need to project as straight as possible, without lensshift and so on.

Daniel

[cormac.conn]

Thanks for your help Daniel. We'll try and do something different!