Barco, the technology company focusing on innovative visualisation solutions, has supplied approximately 150 projectors for Le Space Inspire, an immersive exhibition space in Incheon, South Korea.
Le Space Inspire is one of the most innovative attractions destinations in the country, spanning over 6,600 square meters. Technology, light, sound and sensory stimulation are combined to create an otherworldly experience across four distinctive zones. These zones, Space Exploration, Portal 1: New Land, Portal 2: New Creature, and Cosmo Station, offer 18 exhibition spaces and a creative voyage from planet Earth to distant alien lands, and beyond.
Hyundai Futurenet, an ICT and immersive exhibition company, was in charge of making Le Space Inspire a reality.
Taeyoon Oh, exhibition business team lead at Hyundai Futurenet, says: “With Le Space Inspire, we were really trying to do something that has never been done before.
“By combining elements of theme parks, exhibitions, and attractions together to create an experience we are exploring new territory. And we wanted this experience to engage every sense of the visitor from sight, sound, smell, to touch and feel. To do this we knew that we would need to create the right content and then use the right technology to bring this experience to life.”
Creating impact
Display technology is vital for producing the visitor experience at Le Space Inspire. To deliver the attraction’s ambitious vision, Hyundai Futurenet used a comprehensive toolkit of technologies, including LED, lighting, and projection capabilities.
“For us, the choice of display technology is dictated by the content and the application,” says Oh. “When we need brightness and a higher level of the detail we may opt for LED. But when we need to create an immersive environment, where the visuals cover large space, nothing beats projection.
“When choosing the projector, we did a proper evaluation of all the options in the market, and we tested them out thoroughly. From our evaluation and testing, we found that Barco projectors were the right fit for Le Space Inspire. Their colour reproduction and technical capabilities were in line with the content we were creating and also in line with the outcomes we wanted to achieve.”
Le Space Inspire utilises approximately 150 Barco projectors, including the G50-W6 model, the G62-W14, G62-W11, and G62-W9 models, the UDX-4K40 model, and the UDM-4K30, UDM-4K22, and UDM-4K15 models.
These projectors played a key role in creating the immersive experience and have enabled Hyundai Futurenet to realise its vision.
“In the exhibition hall titled Exoplanet, we have an LED sphere that is the main attraction in the space. But the walls surrounding this LED sphere have content projection mapped onto them,” says Oh. “We are using the Barco UDM-4K projectors with 30,000 ANSI lumens brightness and we must say that they are able to display amazing visuals even though the light from the LED sphere is present.”
Barco projectors also play a critical role in the Volcanic exhibition hall:
“The centrepiece of Volcanic is a rock model that sits in the middle of the space. We have carefully mapped and projected content onto this rock model to create the ambience of hot, volcanic, lava that has solidified. We had to scan the rock model and then spend many days testing and warping the content into the intricate nooks and crevices. But the result is fantastic and really showcases the impact that can be created with Barco projection.”
Enhancing immersion
In the Humanoid exhibition hall, Barco projectors are used to produce a holographic image by projecting onto mesh screens in a Pepper’s Ghost effect. With extra projection onto the side and rear walls, the holograms become even more lifelike, heightening the visitor’s sensation of immersion.
“More and more, we are finding that attraction spaces must be immersive, and that as a result technology needs to be unobtrusive,” adds Oh.
“Across Le Space Inspire, we’ve hidden away the speakers and the projectors as well. In the Parallel Universe exhibition hall, we had to hide more than 20 projectors, but the visuals still had to be perfect. I believe that as manufacturers make advances around throw distances and light sources, we will be able to address a lot of the challenges we face in deploying projectors and this will enable us to go to the next level of immersion for attractions.”
Jae Duk Kim, sales director, immersive experience, Barco Korea, says: “It’s amazing to see what Hyundai Futurenet has been able to achieve with Barco projection at Le Space Inspire. For 90 years, innovation has been our legacy at Barco, installations and attractions like this push us to go further to improve and transform the way people work and create compelling experiences with our technology. We can’t wait to see what the future holds because it is going to be very exciting.”
Earlier this year, Barco launched a new survey to explore the future of park technology and help shape the next generation of immersive experiences.
