Illuminarium and Panasonic encourage you to get to know Africa in the world's first virtual safari

‘Wild’, the first interactive show of the Illuminarium Experiences, places the viewer on a virtual safari in 360º through the 4K laser projection of Panasonic, 3D audio, haptic technology in the soil and aromas.

Inaugurated a few months ago in the US state of Atlanta, Wild is the first interactive show of Illuminarium Experiences that 'transports'’ to visitors across the African continent in the first virtual safari of the world so far, with south African film locations, Kenya and Tanzania showing the beauty of the savannah and the world's most exotic animals in their natural habitats thanks to technology.

Founded by Alan Greenberg, Radical Media and The Rockwell Group, Illuminarium Experiences brings together best-in-class content creation experts, theatrical design, interactive technologies and applications in scenarios, turning its facilities into a surprising combination between a museum, a cinema and virtual reality, whose objective is that the audience is part of the show and can share it, removing the individual barriers of VR glasses.

Alan Greenberg, CEO of Illuminarium Experiences, that's how he explains it.: “what museums are for art, cinemas for films and concert halls for music, the Illuminarium are for deperiential entertainment. We have spaces of some 2.322 m2, with ceilings of almost 8 meters high, to create reprogrammable immersive environments, surrounding visitors, in a sensory space view, sound and scale like no other”.

Integrated interactive technology

Enjoy an interactive experience and virtual reality without the need for glasses or other elements is the goal of Illuminarium, that with its creative experiences offers “one collective and connected entertainment to be enjoyed as a shared human experience," adds Greenberg., no hardware required, while 'behind the curtains’ we have a lot of hardware and software to make the experience happen”.

Wild: the world's first virtual safari, is the company's first show that takes the audience from the majestic plains of Masai Mara to the large herds of Kruger National Park to the green watering holes of samburu Reserve., all without having to travel more than to Atlanta, where the installation is.

This unique interactive show is based on laser projectors, professional displays and camera solutions, all in 4K resolution, manufacturer's Panasonic, fruit of the collaboration as an exclusive technological provider with Illuminarium.

specifically, the laser projectors 3 DLP chips and native 4K resolution for large spaces PT-RQ50K, with a power of 50.000 Lumens glitter (more details on Digital AV), star in this virtual safari.

Illuminarium and Panasonic's partnership also includes, how this one advanced daily, the manufacture of a single lens ultra-short range to produce an enhanced immersive experience in indoor entertainment shows.

The Panasonic lens ET-D3QW200 eliminates the separation between viewers and content, achieving a native 4K resolution of great realism at a very short distance and a minimum loss of light.

The wide scope of video projection and its interactive elements make the experience at Illuminarium unique; with haptic effects on the floor for visitors to feel the roar of a lion walking nearby and sensitive elements in the bar space, like a flock of birds that explodes from a tree as they approach.

The Bart at Illuminarium

In the evening and located in a smaller screening room is The Bart at Illuminarium, a bar that offers an immersive environment, with a number of different 'worlds'’ Interactive, including a Japanese night market and a cave full of crystals, designed with a game engine to react to visitors' movements and actions while they are sipping a cocktail .

To create this dynamic projection canvas, both the virtual safari and The Bart use films that are captured with six cameras and joined together to remove visible seams. Minus the space needed to project it, the film extends 240º degrees, wider than the human field of vision.

To do this, Alan Greenberg turned to David Rockwell, who has designed interiors and spaces such as the famous Nobu restaurant in New York or the sets for the oscar broadcasts and Broadway shows, in order to make the audience part of the Illuminarium experience.

As Rockwell points out, “to tell a story spatially you have to leave unions in the story so that the audience is in it, can look anywhere and walk to the elements of the movie. Whether it is a complete and hermetically sealed story, there are very few opportunities for people to get involved in it”.

The Illuminarium Lab

Next to its headquarters in Atlanta, Illuminarium is building a post-production center and r&d called The Illuminarium Lab; a research and development centre in immersive entertainment and interactive technologies, in collaboration with technical partners such as Panasonic, Holoplot and Disguise, to which more will be added.

How your CEO assures, Alan Greenberg, "The Illuminarium Experiences will transport visitors through an unprecedented combination of total sensory immersion and theatrical inspiration that would not be possible without our partners' innovative technology., as Panasonic. We are proud to democratize places, the world's most incredible people and experiences through immersive educational digital shows, with social conscience and very attractive".

AV-over-IP Technology

Another of the technological partners to create these innovative custom-designed spaces is Lightware and your solution UBEX (ultra bandwidth extender), that provides uncompressed audio and video content.

In the words of Brian Allen, Vp. Technology and Content Executive at Illuminarium Experiences, “it is a space that can take you anywhere, in a way never experienced before, through the most innovative technology. From a technical point of view, this requires us to offer the highest quality of audio and video”.

In this sense, Allen adds that “every layer of our technology contributes to the experience we're trying to create. Our content is incredibly realistic and, therefore, we have to integrate a technology that does not look like a projector and a screen, but the African Serengeti. We have to look at the small details, such as color spaces and light output, to create an immersive experience”.

Lightware's UBEX solution is used to deliver reliable content with latency ceror, “which allowed us to push the boundaries of technology by delivering truly uncompressed content, and without any degradation in our camera signal, playback and projector”.

With the aim of deploying a flexible and future-ready system “we also use more fiber for each location, as we anticipate that the signals will have a greater bit depth, more color information and higher resolution. We wanted to have the ability to transport additional information for future growth.. An AV-over-IP system provided us with the flexibility needed for expansion”, adds Allen.

Illuminarium to Open Other Facilities in Las Vegas, Nevada and Miami in 2022. To the show Wild will follow soon Spacewalk, a mind-blowing journey through the solar system, in which the public will experience what it is like to walk on the surface of the Moon and Mars.

“We create different rendering lines for each show -Allen continues-. It was important that we integrated a flexible solution that would allow us to use existing technology while creating new shows.. UBEX allows direct connectivity to different inputs and components that provide us with unprecedented flexibility in this huge installation”.

This uncompressed AV-over-IP solution can work as a virtual array using a standard Ethernet switch as a crossover point or working as a conventional point-to-point extender.

The unit allows the extension of uncompressed and high-fidelity signals in 4K UHD a 60 hz (4:4:4) using packet-based transmission. UBEX can simultaneously stream and receive content with deep color streams and multi-channel audio.

Other articles on Disguise, Holoplot, Illuminarium, Lightware, Panasonic, Radical Media, Rockwell Group