New Trend For 2011: Architectural Projection Mapping

If you haven’t heard about it, “projection mapping” is defined by Mashable as “a relatively new technology that animates stationary objects with 3D video.”  While researching this “new technology”, it appears to be the latest and greatest.  Still, it seemed to me an awful lot like projecting a video on a really big surface, which is hardly “new technology.”

Then I took a few minutes and actually watched some video examples.  Wow!  Absolutely incredible!  When done well, projection mapping creates the powerful illusion of a building actually coming to life.  Take a look for yourself. Below is a video of an Architectural Projection Mapping production in London:

Architectural Projection Mapping is a fancy term for playing a light show on a building. The designer plans out the show for each buildings architectural features.  Think in terms of marketing building renovations!

Evan Grant of Seeper, an Arts and Technology firm based in East London that specializes in projection mapping productions, explains the technology this way, “In simple terms, we take the architectural plans of a building — or if they don’t exist, we create them. Using these plans, we recreate the building as a 3-D model using computer software. Using super-bright projectors and our custom software, we project the model onto the building, aligning it to the architectural details.”