Serial Digital » watchout http://www.serialdigital.com Notes on presentation graphics and vision systems Sat, 20 Feb 2010 23:14:25 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Microsoft Project Natal: Must have consequences for Presentations http://www.serialdigital.com/2009/06/05/microsoft-project-natal-must-have-consequences-for-presentations/ http://www.serialdigital.com/2009/06/05/microsoft-project-natal-must-have-consequences-for-presentations/#comments Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:47:32 +0000 Steve Wylie http://www.serialdigital.com/?p=221 Microsoft has released information about it’s new XBox games platform, dubbed Project Natal. The system uses a 3D camera to allow participants to interact with games without requiring a controller – it detects the people in the room and translates their real movements to commands in a game.

We’ve already seen the guys at pptPlex working on using much the same 3D camera technology to control PowerPoint – and I’m sure that it’s just a matter of time before great things happen in this space – I could imagine some really neat interaction with a system like Dataton Watchout. We’ll see…

More information about the Project Natal platform on the XBox website.

]]> http://www.serialdigital.com/2009/06/05/microsoft-project-natal-must-have-consequences-for-presentations/feed/ 0 Edge blending with single chip DLP projectors http://www.serialdigital.com/2009/01/19/edge-blending-with-single-chip-dlp-projectors/ http://www.serialdigital.com/2009/01/19/edge-blending-with-single-chip-dlp-projectors/#comments Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:21:10 +0000 Steve Wylie http://www.serialdigital.com/?p=109 I recently visited the Australian War Memorial in Canberra and watched two presentations which looked to be Watchout or Wings content across three projectors each.

Australian War Memorial Projection Exhibit

Australian War Memorial Projection Exhibit

The second, newer presentation looked (from a distance) to be using projectiondesign F30 projectors, and the image (mostly 3D animation) looked pretty good – however I did notice the gamma ramp in the blend region, which prompted me to comment on using single chip DLP projectors for edge blending.

The projectiondesign single chip DLP’s have a setting called ‘Color Boost’, which is designed to push the gamma curve settings to get the punchiest image from the projector – but at the cost of accurate colour and gradient representation.

This seriously affects an edge blend, as the gradient between projectors appears ‘stepped’ rather than smooth:

Smooth Blend

Smooth Blend

[caption id="attachment_112" align="alignright" width="30" caption="Steppend Blend"]Steppend Blend[/caption]

In my experience, when using a single chip DLP projector for edge blends, any colour boost or image/level management features should be disabled so the image appears ‘natural’ – even if this costs light output.

On the projectiondesign F30 units, I have found that setting the ‘Color Boost’ feature to ‘3’ will give an adequate balance between accuracy and intensity.

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