In 2018, the city of Feldkirch celebrated its 800th anniversary. We were asked to help with the promotion of this celebration, so we used our outdoor digital projection system to illuminate Montforthaus – one of the most significant buildings in the town. Although Austria is our neighbouring country, the whole project was executed remotely from our office in the Czech Republic.
For the anniversary, the multi-purpose cultural centre and a significant modern building, Montforthaus, received the sticker symbolising the town’s age – an outline of number “800” that was stuck to the window. During the day, it looked like this:
Our task was to enhance that “800” sticker with projection during the night time. Although projecting on the window is not possible as the light from the projector goes through the glass, the “800” sticker changed the game. It reflected the light quite nicely, so our outdoor digital signage projection system LUMITRIX T2 was the perfect product to use in this case.
LUMITRIX T2 is an IoT product, so we knew that we didn’t have to go on-site personally, which eventually saved a high cost to our client. We just sent one T2 luminaire to Feldkirch, and the technician from Montforthaus attached the projection system to a nearby pole. It’s pretty easy following this tutorial. The advantage of installing the unit on a city light post is that you already have the electricity inside – and the plug is the only cable you need. Otherwise, everything is wireless.
“We just shipped the product, Montforthaus technician installed it outside and otherwise we did everything remotely – scanned the building, used the scan as a background for our content, sent the content to the projector over the internet and scheduled when it should be played” says David Pacult, content designer and operator at LUMITRIX
After the T2 was fixed on the light post and the SIM card inserted, the unit went online, and we could start with content production. First, we ran a scan procedure which gave us a pixel-precise picture of what part of the building did the projector illuminate. The scan was used as a background for the project in Adobe After Effects. With LUMITRIX technology, you can use whatever software you are used to using as the product was developed for any artists – not just mappers. As Monforthaus is quite a minimalistic building, we designed just a few simple mapping loops that fitted with the architecture. We also created everything with white colour only, although the T2 comes with full RGB spectrum.
Once the content was ready, we uploaded it to the device over the internet. After that, our client scheduled when the content should be played. That’s very easy to do thanks to our intuitive Lumiverse App. Finally, the “800” sticker was enhanced exactly the way our client wished.
Happy birthday, Feldkirch!