The new centerpiece of the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute’s (HHI) Tomorrow’s Immersive Media Experience Lab (TIME Lab) is a huge 7 megapixel 180-degree display 12 meters wide driven by 7 of projectiondesign’s F32 DLP projectors.

“The aim of this installation is to allow digital film experts and famous film directors such as Tom Tykwer, to dive into and discover the fascination of digital cinema projection and video systems, evolving scripts and global economic challenges. At the event visitors will be treated to a true multi-media environment that offers full acoustic and visual experience of live event broadcasting and a range of novel film formats. Our projection system is designed for the future and the fantastic image quality of the projectiondeisgn projectors has made the display the centrepiece of the HHI TiME Lab,” says Christian Weissig from the Image Processing Department at the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute in Berlin, Germany.

In particular I love the construction of the reflection panels on the ceiling, the projectors are mounted in a half-circle pointed downwards with reflectors, all shown in the pictures.  The official launch is this Friday, but you can see several pictures of the installation at their site.  Full press release after the break.

Update 2/28/10: Corrected a misspelling of Weissig’s name.

A panoramic view: projectiondesign® in immersive cinema at Fraunhofer HHI TiME Lab symposium and opening

projectiondesign F32 projectors display immersive and panoramic showcase of ‘tomorrow’s cinema, the future of content’

Fredrikstad, Norway, 17 February 2010 – Norway’s projectiondesign are supplying seven F32 DLP® projectors for an immersive and panoramic 180-degrees high resolution display measuring 3.35 by 12 meters wide. The display is the centrepiece of the new HHi TiME Lab – HHI Tomorrow’s Immersive Media Experience Lab to be launched at an official opening and symposium this coming Friday, 19 February at Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute in Berlin, Germany.

The audio visual system uses the seven F32 projectors for the reproduction of panoramic video images with a special resolution of about 7,000 pixels and luminosity of around 28,000 lumens.

The HD images are projected using an optical mirror system as vertical slices onto a curved 180-degree screen. Dedicated warping and blending hardware allows seamless transitions between these HD slices to enable the video to appear as a single panorama of brilliant image quality. The system is backed up by a real-time Wave Field Synthesis (WFS) surround sound system.

“The aim of this installation is to allow digital film experts and famous film directors such as Tom Tykwer, to dive into and discover the fascination of digital cinema projection and video systems, evolving scripts and global economic challenges. At the event visitors will be treated to a true multi-media environment that offers full acoustic and visual experience of live event broadcasting and a range of novel film formats. Our projection system is designed for the future and the fantastic image quality of the projectiondeisgn projectors has made the display the centrepiece of the HHI TiME Lab,” says Christian Weissig from the Image Processing Department at the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute in Berlin, Germany.

The exclusive launch is in cooperation with Berlinale Talent Campus, Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen “Konrad Wolf” (HFF), McKinsey & Company and Berliner Philharmoniker and the Berlin School of Creative Leadership.

And the last word goes to Anders Løkke, International Marketing & Communications Manager at projectiondesign who says: “We’re delighted to be involved with such a innovative and exciting project with the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, which highlights the imaging capabilities of our projectors to show the future of cinematic content.”

More information about the symposium and opening can be found at http://www.hhi.fraunhofer.de/index.php?id=1962.