The Banamex Digital Dome of the Papalote Museo del Niño in Mexico City, works between 73 and 85 hours a week, so it requires high quality equipment and resistance to offer an image of the best quality to its visitors.
Panasonic from Mexico
With the aim of optimizing the operation, saving resources and improving the performance of the projection offered to the public, the Engineering Department of Papalote Museo del Niño, located in the capital of Mexico, was given the task of evaluating new technological options that would meet the needs of the Banamex Digital Dome.
They reviewed different proposals from different brands and finally, at the beginning of 2011, they opted for Panasonic's offer that suggested the use of PT-DZ8700U Full HD projectors with DLP (Digital Light Processing) technology with three chips.
In addition, WUXGA resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels per chip, brightness of 10,600 lumens, contrast ratio of 10,000 to 1 and a double lamp system that ensures uninterrupted projection.
Panasonic de México and the company Croma Digital, integrators of audiovisual solutions and authorized distributors of the brand in Mexico, visited the facilities of the Dome to perform the calculations corresponding to the shots of each projector, according to the configuration of the enclosure and to be able to suggest the appropriate lenses for each equipment, according to its location.
With the support of Japanese Panasonic engineers who visited the Dome on several occasions, they managed to reduce the number of projectors needed to cover the surface of the screen, so now only eight devices are used instead of the previous nine.
Project challenges
The main challenges that the new teams had to overcome were that the geometry of the projection could be modified for cylindrical or spherical surfaces, as in the case of the Dome, which is a projection in the form of a dome or vault.
On the other hand, significantly improve the luminosity and contrast to perceive the images in all their dimension of color, depth and detail.
In case of the geometry of the projection, the geometric adjustment function of the Panasonic projectors allows to display images in a spherical shape and is fully compatible with the projection calibration system that they have always used in the Dome facilities and that uses red LEDs to project a grid that serves as a guide to adjust the images perfectly.
In addition, the Edge Blending function of the PT-DZ8700U, digitally composes the images and eliminates the edges and joints of each of the eight projections that the equipment deploys so that it looks like a single large one and in the form of a vault, typical of the surface of the Dome. Geometric settings are made through software installed on a PC and can be stored on the system.
Due to the projection quality of the PT-DZ8700U, depth and definition details that were not previously observed in the videos are now perceived, as well as the color, thanks to the image processors that work four scales: low, medium, high and super high.
The Dome
Inaugurated in 2004, the Banamex Digital Dome used nine projectors with XGA resolution to display the images on its screen. These equipment had the disadvantage of requiring a replacement of lamps for every thousand hours of operation, which in addition to being very onerous (50 thousand dollars for each occasion), required that each quarter this replacement be made.
The Dome operates year-round, offering eight to ten daily functions, representing an operation of 73 hours per week in the regular season and up to 85 hours for each week of the holiday seasons.
This is one of the main attractions of the Papalote Museo del Niño, located in the Bosque de Chapultepec in Mexico City. Inside, visitors can live the experience of being inside a planetarium in whose vault magnificent High Definition video productions are projected that show the secrets of the Universe in an attractive and very entertaining way, bringing astronomical science closer to the children and adults who daily come to its facilities.
Project data
• Integrator: Croma Digital, authorized distributor of Panasonic de México
• Need: Replace nine XGA resolution video projectors with lamps that offered a thousand hours of life and involved an investment of $ 50,000 for each replacement.
• Solution: Eight Panasonic video projectors, model PT-DZ8700U Full HD DLP 3 chips, brightness of 10,600 lumens, WUXGA resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels, contrast of 10,000 to 1, dual lamp system, Geometric Adjustment functions and Edge Blending.
• Investment: 4 million 500 thousand Mexican pesos
• Benefits: The use of a projector was eliminated, the lamps last from 3 to 4 thousand hours, the resolution was increased 13 times and now there is local technical service.
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