We had a chance to walk around InfoComm 2014 this year. There were lots of exciting things to see, and here are some highlights!
Seems like everyone is showing off gigantic pieces of glass. LG, NEC, Planar, Panasonic, and Samsung all were showing 98” 4k screens. Not only are these screens massive, but the 4k resolution is going to make an arms-length touch experience that much nicer. Another trend: these screens are getting less expensive (less than a thousand dollars per square inch).
Projection Mapping is getting to be a bit less of a “black art”. It’s nice to see this powerful display technique getting easier to deploy. Panasonic, Barco and Christie were all showing off various Projection mapping solutions.
Christie’s projection mapping system is very interesting – their demo was showing automatic calibration and projection mapping onto various 3d models. You’ll see two projectors at the top of the frame, and the camera used to do the calibration at top center.
3M was showing a prototype 55” capacitive touch screen. Larger capacitive multi-touch? Yes, please.
And finally Sony gets a special mention for showing real time computer generated 8k x 4k graphics, projected with seamless edge blending. Showing a photograph simply doesn’t do this justice.It takes four of these to do it:
While nothing revolutionary was on display at InfoComm, there were lots of evolutionary products. Screens are, as always, getting larger and cheaper at the same time. 4K display and projection technology is still expensive but will be mainstream very shortly -- pretty soon 4k will be the normal resolution, and 1080p will be the “budget” solution. Touch surfaces are also getting larger and better, too. And projection mapping, which used to be in the domain of magic to get right, is getting much easier to deploy.
