Pandoras Box synchronized the audiovisuals of the largest spherical building in the world

At the Astana Expo 2017, in the Nur Alem building, Christie Pandoras Box was used to control the hundreds of equipment required for video mapping, immersive projections, interactive installations and all types of audiovisual elements displayed on the eight floors.

The world's best experts in show control met in Kazakhstan to flood the largest spherical building in the world with audiovisuals. It was at the International Exhibition of Astana 2017, where were they used 200 systems Christie Pandoras Box to give life to 34 audiovisual installations in what has probably been one of the largest works in the history of this product, ideal for the design of multimedia shows.

A project of enormous complexity where the technical teams had to work in extremely harsh conditions that demonstrated the robustness of Pandoras Box. And despite the temperatures of 15 subzero degrees and snow storms at the time of installation, only two graphics cards were damaged.

The building is called Nur Alem and was the heart of the Astana Expo 2017, whose motto was 'Energy for the Future’. Con 80 meters in diameter, one hundred meters high and 26.000 square meters of surface, each of its eight floors was dedicated to a type of energy.

The Turkish construction company Symbol, which was the main contractor for Expo Astana, he selected his compatriot Astel Electronics for the supply and supervision of all the Pandoras Box systems in the building. The integration of all these solutions was carried out by three companies –Adunic (Swiss), Acciona Productions and Design (Spain) and Symmetric (Italia)–, which in turn subcontracted a dozen companies and freelancers specialized in Pandoras Box from around the world.

Pandoras Box was the central element that controlled the hundreds of laser projectors, displays, videowalls, PCs and digital devices used in Nur Alem to produce video mappings, immersive projections, interactive installations and all types of audiovisual elements displayed on the eight floors.

“This is not our first project with Pandoras Box. We already use it in the Astana presidential library and museum in 2014. So it is a familiar system for us that also offered us the reliability necessary for a project of this magnitude.. Its main strength is the scalability it provides., as well as that it is a network-based VNC solution. With Pandoras Box it is possible to have a stand alone single channel player, up to a large scalable system with hundreds of channels”, comment Yakup Karabag, Sembol electrical engineer.

Kazakhstan and hydropower

The Spanish BGL She was responsible for the audiovisual engineering of the first and second floors of the building. (more details in Digital AV Magazine). The first level, with a surface of 2.400 square meters, was dedicated to the host country, Kazakhstan, and the second, of 800 square meters, to hydropower.

On this second floor there were various mappings with warping and blending, among which stood out an interactive one that created water on the ground with 20 projectors, another with 14 projectors recreating seven waterfalls, and a third that simulated a turbine on the outer face of a cylinder.

All these projections, as well as the different monitors and plasmawalls present on this floor, They were managed by twenty Pandoras Box systems, between Quad Servers, Players, Compact Players y Managers. Besides, a Widget Designer controlled this entire plant, as well as automated on and off of equipment so that it starts automatically in the morning and turns off at the set time.

He played a fundamental role in the programming and technical support of the second floor projections. David Galvez, the greatest Pandoras Box expert in Spain, founder of the company DG Visuals. “It was an incredible project, with dozens of audiovisual displays deployed on eight floors and controlled solely by Pandoras Box. This system was able to keep all playbacks synchronized perfectly, despite the great complexity of combining a lot of technologies in one place”.

On the first floor, the Canopy stood out, a triangulated structure in which immersive projections were made over the landscapes of Kazakhstan with 40 projectors. This show was synchronized with an interactive installation where visitors could learn more about the famous Kazakh myth of Bayterek.

German companies played a fundamental role in the audiovisual integration of this first plant. AV Active y Burmester.

“The entire first floor was controlled by a central Widget Designer, a fundamental tool that managed dozens of displays, computers, projectors, lights… Pandoras Box provided us with great flexibility in content management and timeline programming. And not to mention the reliability of the system, taking into account its uninterrupted use 24/7 for three months. The truth is that this was one of the most complex installations we have done in recent years., but it is clear that Pandoras Box was the best possible solution. Due to the large number of unforeseen and unknown variables that you face in a construction of this type, I can only say that we had the best tool, and the most flexible”, aclara benjamin brostian, CEO of AV Active.

For José Chorro, Director of Audiovisual Services at BGL, “The main strong point of Pandoras Box is to integrate both production and (image composition, blending…) how to control the shows”.

360º projection from the third to the sixth

The German integrator Neumann & Müller was responsible for the design and installation of AV systems from the third to sixth floors, where they were used 800 displays de 55 inches to provide information to visitors.

The most notable installation here was a projection of 360 degrees made with 34 equipment that produced a solar sphere of 13 meters in diameter where the visitors walked, and that explained the influence of the Sun on life on Earth. Different Led reflectors, projections and printed elements were also used to simulate activities on the surface of this sun.

Neumann & Müller used Pandoras Box servers and players for video playback, while for the mapping projections, different Pandoras Box Quad Server units were used.. It also used Widget Designer – in some cases installed on touch panels – to remotely control all servers., projectors and displays.

“Pandoras Box is a very reliable system for large scale installations. In this project we installed more than 70 servers and players and we only experienced a few glitches that we were able to fix in minutes. The hardware is very sturdy, especially if we take into account that the atmospheric conditions were extremely harsh. When we install the servers, The temperature inside the building was 15 degrees below zero, to which was added the heavy dust from the construction sites”, clarifies Felix Erdmann, project manager de Neumann & Müller.

Long wait times in the middle of snowstorms became normal for customers. 80 Neumann workers & Müller deployed in Astana, among germans, Portuguese, spanish, British, russians, Ukrainians and Kazakhs. “Another challenge was the tight deadline for installation, programming and commissioning.

Pandoras Box overcomes complexities

Kaan Kısakol, CEO of Astel, recognizes the value of Pandoras Box in executing the project despite its great complexity. “In addition to the best-known features of Pandoras Box such as warping and edge blending, Its reliability and special features such as interactivity helped us enormously. In addition, Its hardware is so robust that, although there were such a massive amount of Pandoras Box products, our technical team had to replace only two damaged graphics cards during the entire installation”.

Christie has already received requests to use Pandoras Box at upcoming Expos. Mike Steinbrecher, technical director of global sales for Pandoras Box at Christie, highlights version improvements 6 of this solution. “Since we launched Pandoras Box V6 and Widget Designer V6 last year, We have incorporated a large number of new aspects, like multi-user UV mapping in preview, o editable meshes to do on-the-fly FFD and vertex-warping (modification of the geometry of the object according to time and/or user action), which makes programming easier and faster for the user.”.