- Jan, how long can you shoot down projectors ?! When will you finish turning your tank ?! Well, again, the mesh on stitching has gone astray, redoing again!
- Dmitry, finally turn off the grinder. When will I build directional sound at night?
Building an immersive museum is
Today we will tell you about how the new museum complex "Zoya" in Petrishchevo was equipped with multimedia systems. Under the cut - details of the work in the trench, the features of the acoustics in the dugout and many other nuances.
Technical Summary
By tradition, I will first say a few words about the technical equipment of the museum. We selected the equipment at the design stage, and in the end we got the following stack:
- BrightSign players - almost all expositions are collected on them;
- Screenberry server and server software for stitching and ensuring the operation of one of the expositions;
- Canon projectors - settled on them, as they required fairly quiet projectors with good lens shift;
- Bose acoustics and Dante amplifiers;
- LCD panels NEC.
Technical equipment: by sightseer
The museum complex was designed and built in such a way that during the tour, visitors move through the halls in a pre-planned, dramatically correct order. So I, too, will consistently talk about each of the zones.
"Country of the Young"
In terms of technical equipment, this is one of the simplest halls. The collage of posters and photographs fit LCD panels from NEC. They cyclically broadcast footage from films and chronicles of the pre-war USSR. In one place, a directional sound speaker is installed - the audio recording is audible only to those who stand opposite, and does not disturb other visitors.
Classroom
The interior of the class in which Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya studied was recreated here. There are desks in two rows: old ones with lids. On them are fountain pens and inkwells. Portraits of the leaders are hung on the walls, and a globe is on the teacher's table. Outside the window is a sunny day, birds are singing.
When visitors enter the premises, the guide starts the program: day turns into night. Molotov's voice announces the beginning of the war. Submachine gun fires, explosions sound. Airplanes fly by outside the window. The program lasts 5 minutes, after which daylight returns.
This is a rather interesting and difficult area. Our task was to synchronize the light and sound show with each other. Correctly adjust the acoustics so that visitors “believe” that an air raid has begun: explosions are heard in sync with the flashes of light.
As for the organizational aspects, it was necessary to decide how exactly the show starts. We discussed two options for the work of the hall: with a guide and automatic. We settled on the first option. As soon as the group enters, the guide closes the doors and starts the program by pressing the button. So that no one accidentally opens the door during the session, a sign with a countdown to the end of the program hangs above the entrance to the hall. The show is quite loud, and in museums there are certain standards for noise levels. One group should not interfere with the other.
Repeated button presses are limited by logic at the Crestron processor level - network commands are not sent to the player and DMX controller until the show ends.
Village Petrishchevo
Winter forest. Trees rustle, snow crunches underfoot. A little ahead - the log houses of the village of Petrishchevo. Shells can be heard in the distance and dogs are barking.
Forest sounds are looped and played continuously. This is background acoustics. Together with her in the hall there are installations with directional sound - they cyclically broadcast the memories of Zoe's relatives and contemporaries. Here we used a BrightSign player and a Panphonics directional speaker with amplifier. Inside it are several dozen miniature speakers, due to which the sound is concentrated exclusively under the speaker.
A little further, there is a wooden screen covered with a special projection paint. A slide show of photos of Zoe's execution is projected onto him. They were found in the personal belongings of a German officer. Through the built-in speakers, the voice of Zoe's mother sounds. The installation is not interactive, but it makes you chill.
Trench. Battle of Moscow
A very interesting area. It is a tall, almost human height, trench, powdered with snow. Above the visitors rises a full-size SU-152 with an inscription on board: “For Zoya, for my sister!”
The trench is surrounded by a screen, which normally shows a looped animated picture of the view from the trench. The image is fed from three projectors at once - the stitching was done manually, standing on a ladder so that the entire screen could be seen. Horizontal and vertical lines were shot with a laser level, along which the grid (pixel map) was pulled onto the wall. The trench itself consists of a wooden frame, over which a special covering is stretched. The top layer imitates earth and snow.
Perhaps, we will dwell on the trench in more detail - several stories are connected with it.
At the time of the installation of the equipment, the museum was still being completed, so our specialists had to either wait until finishing work in some hall was completed, or readjust on the fly if something changed dramatically.
The tank (strictly speaking, this is, of course, not a tank, but the SU-152 - a self-propelled artillery installation, but at the facility it was called a tank for brevity) was brought and installed in parts for about two days. All this time, we looked with horror at the heavy construction of plaster and MDF, which had every chance of getting between the screen and the projectors. It was physically impossible to make the stitching the first time: during the collection we were knocked down 3-4 times by projectors. Had to re-align them.
During the installation process, engineers repeatedly had to go to a modest job feat - to climb the "trench". We give builders their due: despite the obvious decorative design, everyone returned home safe and sound.
Just like in Zoya's classroom, pressing a button launches the program: the animated view from the trench is replaced with a movie about the battle for Moscow, and a countdown lights up in front of the entrance for the following groups. The timing for the timer is taken directly from the video file, so if the movie is replaced, nothing needs to be reconfigured.
All recordings (photos, music, sound effects, videos, etc.) are stored on the museum server, which is located in a separate room. As soon as the guide includes the program, the controller instructs the server to start the video. In parallel, a command is given on the scoreboard "Do not enter, there is a session".
Especially for people with limited mobility, video information is duplicated on a small 32-inch screen, which is located on the wall of the trench. Another screen shows the chronology of the battle (an animated map of the battle for Moscow) - this is also a looped video file.
Dugout
This is a classic museum area. It recreated the life of partisans and sabotage units. Ceiling acoustics are located in the "dugout" - the sayings of the commanders are broadcast. The emphasis here is not on the manufacturability of the installation, but on the skill of the guide and the setting.
Hall "The world remembers Zoya"
On the walls of the hall are placed classic lightboxes with posters and photographs, as well as a 98-inch LCD panel. It shows a short film about Zoe, filmed back in 1944, during the war. Since passive acoustics were used, for video transmission it was necessary to use twisted pair receivers and transmitters. Classic.
Hall of the Immortal Regiment
One of the most impressive halls. Stitching from three projectors is projected onto a semicircular wall. Passive acoustics is built, the signal comes from the amplifier from the rack, and the video is transmitted to the projectors through the transmitters and receivers.
Special stands with touch displays are installed here. Any visitor can indicate his full name, scan a photo and record a short (up to 3 minutes) video about his grandfather or another relative who fought. The museum administration regularly reviews the materials left by visitors and adds them to the overall video sequence on the wall.
If for some reason a person cannot record a video or forgot to bring a photo, he can leave his phone number or email. Museum staff will contact him and collect the necessary materials.
Hall
A video wall consisting of 9 NEC LCD panels is installed in the hall of the museum. All content comes from one player (it is located behind the wall). All players in the museum are powered by PoE.
In terms of acoustics, audio players transmit sound to the audio system. Further, through the Dante protocol, it is routed through the amplifiers and through the speakers gets into the ears of visitors.
The power supply of the “sensitive” equipment is without fail reserved by uninterruptible power supplies - all the power lines of the equipment from the hall come to the server room and are fed from the UPS installed there, to which the rack itself is connected. For example, projectors cannot be simply unplugged - the lamp will not have time to cool down "normally". As a result, the projector will work much less than planned. Or it will fail altogether.
All systems are controlled from a laptop on which a Crestron panel with a control system build is installed. You can monitor the status of players, LCD panels, see if there is any kind of session now. The interface is duplicated on the tablet, and the control is placed in the hands of technical support engineers. All the elements that the guides interact with are made as babushka-friendly as possible: I clicked on a button and it worked.
Curiosities and difficulties
On site, we faced two major challenges. The first was that the multimedia equipment was not originally included in the building - it was started after the construction was completed and projects of all engineering systems were ready. As a result, I had to bypass air ducts, trays, hang projectors over finished structures and select specific mounts for them. Or invent something custom. The premises of the museum also added difficulties - when installing sound systems, there were many "difficult" zones. All exhibition halls have a rounded shape, so it was necessary to make an acoustic calculation and hang the sound so that there were no multiple reflections. The hardest thing was in the "trench". There, re-reflection of sound is possible not only from the walls of the exposition, but also from the trench itself. Besides,in parallel with our work, the decoration and installation of the scenery went on. I had to wait until colleagues on the site finished painting a wall or "installing" a forest.
The second challenge is tight deadlines. Coronavirus slowed down both construction and equipment supplies, so we were able to start work two weeks later than planned. To meet the opening, sometimes it was necessary to stay until the morning. But everyone was in time - from the moment they entered the site to the final setting, it took about two and a half weeks.
The most epic happened before the opening of the museum. Imagine: midnight, all equipment, except for the directional acoustics that arrived at 6 pm, is tuned and debugged. Shooting and video editing for the opening is in progress. And then the electricity goes out. Not only in the museum, but throughout the village. Naturally, you cannot leave the site if there is even the slightest risk that the equipment has been damaged. But not only we were excited here - the next morning was planned not only a responsible showing of the video, the shooting and editing of which was in full swing, but also the grand opening of the museum with the participation of the Minister and the Governor. At about one in the morning, the electricity returned, everyone shrugged their shoulders and resumed work. At four in the morning the project was completely ready to receive the first visitors. But this, as they say, is another story.