Project Type: Entertainment, Communication  
Category: Event, Exhibition
Client: Taichung City Goverment
Agency: Archicake Design
Year: 2018
Location: Taichung World Flora Exposition

#現地創作
#NDI
#GrayCodePatterns

Taichung World Flora Exposition
Phototropic Synesthesia

As an entry corridor to the exhibition, the team attempted to create immersive “Rinsing Sensory” experience, so as to deconstruct the normal cognition of the audience on exhibition centers and complete a special welcoming flow in all aspects, from visual and auditory aspects to spatial and atmospheric aspects

Concept 

With“Phototrophic Plants”as the main concept, image designs are projected onto plants, translating and enhancing the attitude and traits of the four main characters:“Rice, Fruits, Mushrooms, and Tea Leaves.” Using the monitors as a patchwork through the corridor, through continually stacked and abundant images, along with unending compression of space, a fantasy blend of“organic”and“geometric”coexistence. This will allow the audience to obtain a sense of openness in all areas when entering the indoor exhibition area.

Detail

Due to the demands of this project, visual effect personnel had to work on the visual effects to be projected on the plants on-site. And because the site is mainly outdoors, in order to avoid light pollution, the personnel can only carry out this task at night. And not wanting to sleep late, the time is very limited. In response to this challenge, we developed two tools to complete this task.

• Projector-Camera Calibration Using Gray Code Patterns
  

Simply speaking, through this technology, the visual effect personnel can obtain an image, and this image can be viewed as “the picture seen from the projector. The principle of this technology is gray code patterns are projected on the objects where we need projection mapping using the projector. A camera is set up near the projector lens to record the imaging of the gray code patterns on the video-taped objects. Through calculating the projector-camera relation using the computer, we are able to simulate an image where the camera picture is converted to one that is from the perspective of the projector.
Actually, there are already some ready-made tools to complete this function; however, the images produced from these current tools are all in black-and-white and the details and accuracy are just barely satisfactory. In response to the quality requirements of the visual effect personnel, the team developed this tool on their own.

• Real-Time Visual production Using NDI
  

After obtaining the image from the perspective of the projector, the visual effect personnel still encountered an issue, before projecting, there was no way to preview the visual effect on plants. Therefore, the personnel hoped that there was a system that can provide real-time visual projection editing, where one wouldn’t need to repeatedly calculate and export visual files. So, we made plug-ins for software such as Photoshop and After Effects, where the visual within the production software is immediately exported to the projection system. We used the Network Device Interface (NDI) as the interface for image transmission. NDI is a technology for internet two-way audio-visual signal transmission, where IP Ethernet networks is the main way of connection. Thus, this also let our system achieve a wireless working environment through WIFI.

2018 TWFE - Phototropic Synesthesis

Producer: Hauzhen Yen
Project Manager: Tim Chen
Creative Director: Jay Tseng
Art Director: Chris Lee
Technical Director: Nate Wu
Visual Designer: Chris Lee, Hauzhen Yen, Lynn Chiang, Glenn Huang, Alex Lu
Lighting Designer: Wei-Yu Chen


Sound Director: MUSDM
Sound Designer: MUSDM
Composer: MUSDM
Sound Mixing: MUSDM
Director of Photography: Ray.C, Book Ho
Assistant of Photography: Liang Fa Kan, Chen Kuan Chieh, Hsu Yuan fu
Production Manager: Jay Lee, Prolong Lai, Herry Chang, William Liu, Alex Lu
Assistant Production Manager: Peter Chen, Ya Ting Lin
Location Manager: Isabella Chang

Promote Video: Ting-An Ho
Promote Video Music Composer: IGLOOGHOST

Special Thanks: archicake design, Sean Yang, Sheng Yuan Hung, YUYUPAS, Tian Mi Xin Orchard