Axiom recently developed a 4K multi-touch interactive wall for Cameron International as part of a lobby installation for their new Surface Systems Division Headquarters, located in Houston, TX along the Beltway.
Cameron’s Surface Systems Division wanted an immersive digital environment at the new corporate office that would, at-a-glance, give visitors a concise and visual overview of all of the environments that Cameron’s Surface Systems operates in, as well as give a broad picture view of the products and solutions they offer in the field and what they look like. The interactive wall needed to communicate who Cameron’s Surface Systems Division is, what they do and where they are located, and allow for up to 6 different people to use the wall at one time.
Prior to programming the interactive wall, Axiom began the project through a series of phases including: technology planning, information gathering and design concepting. After looking at several concept directions, the photo above shows the illustrators early sketches of the 3D landscape done in a meeting with the client. Several unique challenges for this particular project were related to resolution, scale and user experience. At over six feet tall and twelve feet wide and boasting over 4k lines of resolution, the graphic requirements of the project and the illustrations to support it were daunting.
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| Client provided sketch of a field layout that was given to Axiom to execute against
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Getting a representative layout of various production sites was an early collaborative milestone that involved internal project experts on the client side as well as creatives, 3D illustrators/animators and brand managers from Axiom getting together to help visualize what the landscape could look like.
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| A tablet sketch done by the illustrator |
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| Early conceptual direction
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Thumbnail sketches, look-and-feels shown on desktop monitors and projectors, and even full screen demos of the project on traditional HD displays, were insufficient to convey the true scale of the final project, as the wall would be comprised of 9-55” multi-touch screens. One solution for this was to output a giant vinyl banner of the interactive wall full size and set up a vertical mockup of the interactive on-site in the lobby (which was still under construction). The project teams would interact with analog representations of the menus and windows in order to test the size of the images and touch points with vinyl cutouts of modal windows printed out at different scales.
The multi-touch software development kit (SDK) utilized for this project supported multiple touchpoints and gestures, such as zoom and pinch functions, across the entire surface. The landscape design had to take into consideration the multiple people utilizing the screen and allow for ample space between them to ensure a collaborative and social user experience. These challenges were able to be resolved during the vinyl mock-up phase of the project.
Concurrent to the vinyl mock-up, design, post-production and programming were all taking place allowing for iterative prototyping and content development to keep the project on track with the grand opening of the new facility and to showcase the wall to the shareholders for a meeting and IR conference scheduled in September.
The Cameron Surface Systems divisions multi-touch wall is one of the few large, interactive walls installed in a corporate environment in Houston at this time. The sophisticated programming and multi-touch software along with the use of video programming, 3D modeling, 3D animations and a keen sense of interactivity are game changers.
To view the finished multi-touch wall, please watch the video below.
Cameron's Surface Group - Multi-touch Video Wall from Axiom on Vimeo.
If you would like to learn more about multi-touch projects and Axiom’s capabilities, please contact Laura Hughey at lhughey@axiom.us.com or (713) 523-5711.Labels: 4k display, interactive design, Interactive Wall, Multitouch, Tradeshow Interactive
