Recently, Orlando International Airport (MCO) opened the brand-new, cutting-edge Terminal C, which greets visitors with an Experiential Media Environment (EME). This features breakthrough technologies and AI software to deliver a unique traveller experience.
The EME project’s executive producer was MRA International Group with Marcela Sardi of Sardi Design as executive creative director. It features a series of large-scale multimedia content by Gentilhomme Studio.
The Moment Vault
The Moment Vault, a captivating immersive multimedia exhibit fueled by the newest interactive technology, is a focal feature of the EME. Smart Monkeys, Inc. developed and manages the Moment Vault technology, which makes use of Realmotion‘s interactive media servers and a brand-new, proprietary, AI-powered marker-less motion capture method. The comprehensive solution gives content producers a special set of tools that let travellers engage in fresh, engaging interactive experiences.
Realmotion’s founder and project lead Alexandre Simionescu says that this installation in the Airside Hub of the new Terminal C is a destination itself. Travellers can walk through three monumental curved 2mm LED displays that form a circle.
“The Moment Vault reflects Orlando International Airport’s established air, water and sky aesthetic and provides an exciting new opportunity for visitors to create lasting travel memories and form positive associations with the airport and the city of Orlando,” says Simionescu.
“The immersive real-time experience is made possible through Realmotion’s latest G32 real-time media servers and Fusion tracking technology that instantly converts a subject’s motion into digital wireframes that are integrated into the onscreen content produced by creative studio Gentilhomme, providing delightful selfie-ready moments.”
3D marker-less tracking
Six cameras are used by the company’s powerful new multi-GPU Fusion server to deliver 3D marker-less tracking for up to 25 subjects inside the Moment Vault. The three Realmotion G32 servers receive the data from the real-time tracking system and feed it into an Unreal Engine scene. This solution uses AI and machine learning to guarantee precise people tracking by creating a “3D pose estimate” for each person in the area. Real-time virtual avatars are then precisely positioned in real-time digital content using each pose estimate.
Realmotion developed an innovative, proprietary technology that makes use of the aforementioned six cameras to record the space from various angles, in contrast to the existing pose estimation systems, which could only work in 2D and could not distinguish between the size and distance of objects. With several camera angles, guests who are behind someone else relative to the camera are no longer missed by occlusion, or sight-line blockages.
With this, groups of users can be tracked in 3D without the need for markers, with accuracy, responsiveness, and robustness. This adds new capabilities to location-based immersive environments.
Realmotion offers support for industry-leading technologies including Unreal engine, ISAAC, Unity, Notch, TouchDesigner, and Realmotion Flow to give maximum flexibility for real-time content production because it is aware that content designers require more than one tool to realise their ambitions.
A crowd pleaser
“This project is a crowd pleaser, and that is its intent,” Simionescu continued. “More and more organizations are looking to create novel technological experiences for customers and guests, and they often require significant research and development, including software design and new combinations of hardware.
“At Realmotion, we are building on the success of our tools by turning the best of them into productized solutions that can be deployed industry-wide with greater speed and affordability, as we are planning to do with our G32 and Fusion servers that helped bring The Moment Vault to life.”
Realmotion has previously collaborated with Smart Monkeys, Inc., a Florida-based consulting company that specialises in feature-centric technology implementations for location-based entertainment, and was hired to supply a state-of-the-art media server with generative content capabilities and the motion capture system.
“Creating installations that support generative content is critical to maximizing use and flexibility and provides today’s artists with the tools and canvasses they need to present their latest works,” says Smart Monkeys, Inc. design consultant Paul Bristol.
“Often, art installations are temporary traveling exhibits that require tight scheduling and limited options for the host location. With the amazing permanent digital canvas offer in the Moment Vault, Orlando International Airport can offer much greater visibility and opportunity to artists and content creators, while enjoying a simpler, more powerful management system.”
A trusted solution
Realmotion’s cutting-edge offerings and skills, including the fact that its servers are completely compatible with the ISAAC AV monitoring and management platform utilised by Smart Monkeys, Inc., made it the ideal choice for this project. Using a trusted, dependable hardware and software solution from Realmotion was essential to simplifying daily use, which was one of the project’s primary goals. It was important to ensure that operating and upgrading the displays is as simple as possible for both owners and artists.
“We’re also working directly with artists to help identify more streamlined workflows and cut down the time required to go from concept to presentation,” adds Bristol. “Our innovations, combined with improvements in LED technology and the supporting infrastructure that enable drag-and-drop content control, can drastically cut the time-to-market for art pieces, reduce costs for owners and enable more artists to be featured.
“In a custom-built environment with a semi-captive audience, these experiences can help artists gain name recognition and notoriety while providing a one-of-a-kind space that is instantly identifiable when shared on social media.”
Realmotion also developed a tracking system software emulator that enables producers to test and develop interactive content without the need for real-world subjects or displays, in order to better prepare content developers.
More experiences to come
The Moment Vault is the initial element of Terminal C’s Experiential Media Environment. This will eventually include two other cutting-edge installations, “The Portal” and “Windows on Orlando”.
“There is high demand for creating memorable moments that don’t require physical touch or employee interaction, and their use is certain to grow as travelers and consumers begin to expect these types of installations,” says Simionescu. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and now that we’ve figured out the way to deliver these amazing experiences, we are excited to see what other organizations have the desire to build something special with us.”
The Experiential Media Environment (EME) project was a collaborative effort among the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, Gentilhomme Studio, Sardi Design, Burns Engineering, MRA International Group, Hahn International, SACO, Smart Monkeys, Realmotion, Electrosonic and many more.
Header image courtesy of Realmotion
