NXT Capture, an imaging solutions provider for amusement parks and attractions, has just completed its fourth season at Santa’s Wonderland in College Station, Texas, US, an annual festive attraction which features a major light spectacular.
NXT Capture was asked to find a means to upgrade a twelve-lane snow tubing attraction’s existing photo solution from a two-camera system to a twelve-camera system as part of a multifaceted park expansion.
The firm, known for its innovative photo solutions, relied on the talents of its team and creative resources to meet the client’s needs. Historically, high initial capital investment and the installation of several sensors on each tubing lane were two of the biggest obstacles to deploying this automated capture solution on such a vast scale.
Navigating obstacles
Laser sensors are typically used in automated snow tubing photo capture systems, which must be positioned on the tubing route itself. The difficulty with accomplishing this on a snow tubing lane is that it requires substantial infrastructure, mounting systems, and cabling, not to mention the impact of snow and other weather elements interfering with the sensors and conflicting with the limited available space.
To overcome this, NXT Capture disposed of the requirement for hardware sensors and instead used our capture camera’s video as its sensor by utilising its AI-based vision recognition engine. Due to this special innovation, the company was able to lower the required investment and the client’s maintenance costs dramatically.
Brian Ramdat, president of NXT Capture says: “This innovation allowed us to install one of the first 12-camera snow tubing lanes anywhere in the world this year for our client and continues to showcase our leadership in the photo capture and retail space.”
NXT Capture was recently awarded a first-place Best New Product IAAPA Brass Ring award for the feature set included in the NXT PicturePass retail product, an accolade the company has received for the fourth time.
