Urban Visuals

Canada’s Northern House – 2010 Pavillion

Nathan — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 07:36:32 +0000

Here are some photos of our recently completed installation for the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon Pavillion for the 2010 Olympics. Urban Visuals designed the sign and the multi-screen Aurora Borealis projection that draws people into the space as well as designed a number of the media installations throughout the venue.

The Exterior sign built with a unique blend of CNC cut acrylic and “Icy” LED lighting.

A key part of the media installation inside the pavillion is a 5 screen synchronized “Fact Wall” that presents facts you might not otherwise know about Canada’s North.

The Fact Wall

The Aurora Borealis at the entrance.

Samsung: Mapped building projection

konstantinos — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 10:19:44 +0000

We recently completed a project with Samsung and Vancouver’s Brandlive to celebrate the beginning of the Samsung activations at the 2010 Olympic Games. This project involved mapping christmas and winter sports visuals on to the Republic building in Vancouver. For a night the dormant panels of the aluminum facade became animated windows and 3D moving blocks

Using the architectural details of the facade as part of the narrative implemented Samsung content and created several winter sports scenes. The project involved close work with Samsung and Brandlive staff, 3 days of testing with a 10k projector and a mapping process we created that allowed for the animations to me adjusted to the building surface on the fly. For the final day we used a Barco HD 20k projection system and a macbook pro laptop. The un-usually low contrast projection situation ( a lot of ambient light mixed with building surface material) made full 3D illusion difficult, but possible.

RECENT LED Installations – Live

Nathan — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:25:46 +0000

On December 30 we completed a LED based stage design for David Guetta show in Vancouver.

The design consisted of an ‘arc’ of sound responsive LED panels around the performer.

The end result was a bright an stunning form on stage that pulsed to the tempo of the performance. The show also included live feed and syncopated graphic overlay, and real time visual and lighting effects that could be applied simultaneously to video and lighting via the MADRIX console that we run.

Look for more of our work at the “Inkhouse” stage at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver where we will be doing a similar stage design.

From September here’s another video of the crazy MSTRKRFT Show at the Commodore Ballroom. We did full stage design including the custom LED canopy, custom fabricated video screens and 3×3 grid animations. All for one night only.

And in the same weekend across the street Calvin Harris DJs at Venue in front of our permanently installed LED Wall. Stay tuned for some better LED products and custom installation we’re working on.

Oh, and photos of our new office and studio will be up here soon.

Stage Design for MSTRKRFT and Steve Aoki

Nathan — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:16:55 +0000

On Saturday, we installed an LED canopy and custom screen setup for the Blueprint 12th Anniversary Party at the Commodore Ballroom. The event featured acts Steve Aoki and MSTRKRFT and was sponsored by Red Bull. The show was a blast, and while we didn’t get to document it much, I did find these fantastic photos from David Lang’s site. The LED Canopy is built of 16 panels each 20″ by 96″. Each of the panels can be hung individually or combined in any orientation.

The video screens are custom built 40″ squares that create two 10′ x 10′ screens. It’s always fun to work with irregular screen shapes and especially screens that are made of a selection of smaller screens.

Some short clips are below the photos.

Check out the full post with more picture on David Lang’s site.

Here’s some video clips we shot of the event.

Venue LED Screen – Update

Nathan — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:51:30 +0000

The LED screen that we installed at Venue in Vancouver has been receiving plenty of great comments. In the month or so since we installed the wall, we’ve been busy programming it and tweaking it to make it look even better.

Check out the photos we’ve found from a variety of blogs and websites.

Relic Entertainment Interactive Lobby

Nathan — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:31:24 +0000

Well, it’s been in the works for nearly two years, but a couple months ago we finally wrapped up the Interactive Elevator Lobby Installation at Relic Entertainment in Vancouver.

The floor projection system showcases video games and content produced by the Relic developers. Triggered by sensors on each of the elevator doors, the ultra-wide screen projection reacts to visitors leaving the elevators, immersing them in custom LED lighting and projection.

Using our ColourMatch technology, the custom built wall sconces, react to the video, creating an environment that envelopes the visitor. The lighting, video and sound can all lead to an almost frightening experience for the arriving visitor when the elevator doors open.

Venue LED Wall

Nathan — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:08:51 +0000

We’ve just finished installing an LED wall and DJ booth at the newly opened Venue Club in Vancouver.

The 25 foot by 5 foot wide wall is custom built for the club with 200o nodes of RGB LED with an additional 300 nodes for the DJ booth. Video below shows the LED wall without the DJ booth.

Under construction:

Installations at Illuminate Yaletown

konstantinos — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:46:42 +0000

We were asked to create several installations for this debut lighting festival in Yaletown.Our first installation, named “An Instant in Colour” allows spectators to change the colour of the building by placing objects in a marked area nearby. Objects at that spot are captured and translated into moments in colour that move and flow across the building facade blending and mixing with previously captured moments. By reacting to the colours at the spot and the moments captured by it, the building facade enables the viewer to express him or herself by way of light, amplifying and sharing it for all to see. This installation has been developed from Urban Visual Interaction Lab’s exploration into lighting systems that express the mood of buildings, with the goal of expanding the relationship between buildings and their environment. Above and below; the installation translates the colours at the foot of the building to the entire facade above The second installation titled ” space crawlers ” was the collision of media and the conventional forms of a turn of the century (1900’s) building facade. Some images of the installation are below, due to the incredibly tight performance times of illuminate yaletown, the set up of the projections onto the building had to become part of the performance itself. (photo credit: flickr) Above is another photo taken by a person interacting with the set-up grid, often the most simple presentation can create the best interaction. Konstantinos Mavromichalis received his BFA in Visual Arts and Philosophy from the University of Victoria and works primarily in environmental design. Nathan Whitford brings many years of creative talent and lighting expertise to these installations. (photo credits: flickr)

St Regis Tower Interactive Model

Nathan — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:06:01 +0000

Urban Visuals created another interactive model control system for the St. Regis development in Las Vegas. The 50 story high rise condo will be located between the Palazzo and the Venetian hotel on the Vegas Strip, and the preview sales centre is in one of the penthouse suites of the Palazzo hotel, overlooking the building site, as well as much of Las Vegas.

The control system uses an Arduino control board and two custom built 256 channel LED control boxes. The Flash based touch interface (built by Lightroom), communicates with a Processing application which sends commands to the ardiuno and the LED controllers.

The fantastic model was built by The Model Shop in Vancouver, and included individual LEDs for each of it’s 422 suites. Each suite can be individually illuminated, as well as each floor, groups of several floors and random suite illumination (as shown). Light animations also light the entire building suite by suite or floor by floor.

The touch screen with the model in the reflection.

Nathan working on the model.

Enhanced presentation using UV Colourmatch

konstantinos — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 18:56:26 +0000

For a recent project for the Puerto Cancun development in Mexico we designed a lighting system that illuminates the interior of an exhibit theatre space according to colours in the video presentation.

Two switches on the wall allow a sales person to choose between playing back English and Spanish versions of the presentation, which when pressed, dim the architectural lighting and begin the show.

Six channels of full colour LED lights follow along with the video, washing the front wall of the theatre with rich light.