A theater in the World War II Museum in New Orleans, LA uses a Digital Projection TITAN 1080p-700 3-chip DLP projector in rear projection mode for video footage during a recent live performance.

Museum and visitor attraction applications are among the leading and innovative markets with new and improved AV technologies, observed Anders Løkke, international marketing and communications manager for projectiondesign, Norway. The projectiondesign F32 is one of seven of the company’s high-resolution DLP projectors installed in the Giant Heart exhibit.

“This industry is pushing to come up with new clever ideas on how to engage visitors, and the integrators are the ones who make innovative audiovisual technology happen,” he said. “We see projects and installations pushing the boundaries of what AV products can do. For us, it has led to the development of new products that can not only serve these applications better by providing a better experience for the visitor, but also greatly simplify the maintenance and installation requirements for the integrator and systems manager.”

New projectiondesign products include the FR12 Remote Light Source projector series, which reduces maintenance requirements to near zero, and may be mounted where it cannot easily be reached. “This is achieved by removing the lamp and other important parts from the projector itself, and placing these in a rack up to 100 feet away,” Løkke explained. “Other significant product developments include our FL series, using LED illumination instead of a traditional lamp. Albeit at a slightly lower brightness level, LEDs pay for themselves by 100,000 hours of typical lifetime with no need for replacement. Currently, we have several visitor attractions projects running with both types of projector solutions.”

There are some significant changes ahead for the AV industry, he noted. “As visitor attractions are becoming more complex and visible, just ‘mounting some equipment and get a decent picture’ will no longer suffice. Serious consideration must be given to each single project, and significant experience is becoming a key ingredient. There is no substitute for training, education, and knowledge on how to deploy products into an application.”

The big change is not so much in resolution, though that has increased, but what’s really improved is the light output of these machines, said Andrew Kidd, business development manager technology consultant at Electrosonic in Burlington, NJ. “CRTs were less bright than the least bright projectors of today, which are now up to cinema standards. There is also a huge palette of choice in terms of resolution; you can get 4,000-pixel projectors, which allow us to create very large, very clean images.”

Electronics within or external to the projector allow for projecting in higher ambient light environments onto surfaces that are not “true screens and not necessarily flat,” he said. “At Gettysburg (National Military Park Museum) we were asked to use textured wooden surfaces as screens for a three-screen projection system. We selected a slightly brighter projector than would have been required on a normal projection screen surface because texture and color worked against us. We upped the projector power to compensate. At Hershey Park we projected onto a vertical wall surface that curves in and out, like a wave.”

Examples of Electrosonic’s interactive exhibits, with the aid of moderately large LCD and plasma panels, include multi-touch table at the Liberty Memorial (National World War I Museum) in Kansas City, MO, and various at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

“Museums are part of the exhibit market, and the AV industry covers multiple markets,” Kidd said. “Technology used in corporate meeting rooms does not indicate what is happening in the exhibit market, but trade show exhibits have a bearing on how a museum may do it. Corporate lobbies with AV displays are more like exhibits.”

Talking with museum designers, he noted, involves a different conversation than, for instance, talking with a theme park client. “There are only a handful of theme park clients, big companies doing big stuff, and they tend to generate their ideas internally, do a lot of their own concept work, and hire a designer. Very few museums have their own design staff so they rely on the museum design community for most of their ideas. In the same way as when you hire an interior designer, they expect them to know what’s going on out there.”

It’s the same with museums, Kidd said. “I don’t think most designers think ‘projection’ specifically; they think of how they can best tell the story. If projected images can help them that is what they want. They think of the result, and the AV system designer’s job is to help bridge the gap between concept and end result. Every museum designer wants the new museum to contain something different.”

Karen Mitchell is a freelance writer based in Boulder, CO.