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Seamless Video Walls

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the screen-the-size-of-my-wall dept.

ahfoo writes "A company called Seamless Display is shopping around a new way of hiding the seams in video walls that mostly relies on modifiying video drivers to achieve its effects. According to their press release they hide the edges between monitors with a bit of plastic film and compress the video at the edges to produce a more or less seamless image. " Really bizarre, but it looks interesting.

5 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Mirror by Talia+Starhawke · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here's a Press Release...

    --
    +5, Female ;)
  2. Here's another article on it w/picture by FreeLinux · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here is another atricle about it that includes a picture of the display. This one isn't Slashdotted.

  3. Re:Rear Projection by Aidtopia · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is a standard multi-image trick. It works with front or rear projection. To get the images truly seamless, you overlap the projection areas (anywhere from 10 to 50%) and use a grayscale gradient mask to blend the overlapping areas. This technique was perfected with those zillion-projector slide shows from the '80s.

    The trick lives on today with video projections. Dataton has a product (Watchout) which does it in real time with a network of computers. And, as another poster pointed out, aligning the projectors is less of an issue, since you can now use a cam and some extra cycles to warp the projected images rather than adjusting the projectors.

  4. A leetle Mirror by teamhasnoi · · Score: 3, Informative
    Here's one page with some pics.

    And the mostly content free first page.

    This will be a good test of my provider :)

  5. It's called Edge Blending by green+pizza · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've seen SGI and Barco (the projector company) do this for over a decade on their massive multi-projector screens. (As have Panoram and others...) It's a combination of software (generally image overlap) and hardware (soft edges) that produces an invisible seam. With modern high-dollar projectors there isn't even a noticable difference in brightness anywhere on the screen.

    Keep in mind that these sort of professional "reality centers" generally have very precise and predictable optics, these aren't the sort of projects you can buy at Staples or Frys. Cheaply made LCD projectors had a nasty habit of discoloring and changing their output look over time, especially when run for several hours every day. DLP has made a life a lot easier, but the cheap projectors still can't handle continuous use. Shop around and talk to the experts before you plunk a bunch of money down on an array of projectors.