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Projection Artworks and d3 in world’s largest projection mapping event for RWC (VIDEO)

Projection Artworks used d3 technologies software to help stage the world's largest projection mapping event at The O2 arena for the 'Wear the Rose' multimedia campaign for the Rugby World Cup.

Projection Artworks used d3 technologies software to help stage the world’s largest projection mapping event at The O2 arena for the ‘Wear the Rose’ multimedia campaign for the Rugby World Cup.

The campaign began with a send-off concert for the England rugby team, which featured record-breaking projection mapping by Projection Artworks, with a perpetual rose sequence on the roof of The O2 in London and real-time tweets from fans integrated into the projections.

The projection studio designed, animated and projected the sequence and selected four d3 4×4 Pro and two 2.5u’s and its creative suite to facilitate the project.

A total of 68 projectors and 144 moving light fixtures were attached to the interior and exterior of the masts on The O2 to enable the projection. They covered a surface area equal to 10 rugby pitches. The entire show was synched with the LED screens surrounding The O2 to create a full-360 fan experience.

“We chose d3 for its accurate auto calibration, which allowed the use of the automatic blending tools,” said Scott Millar, a design technologist at Projection Artworks and project manager for media systems on The O2 event. “d3’s QuickCal, Web Modules and Dynamic Blend features were all key in making this project happen. It would not have been possible to get the sharp line up, overlaps or blending without these tools.

“With 24 video channels on a 115-metre curved dome surface, this would have been very difficult to achieve manually or with any camera tools,” explained Millar. “From the content side we used a number of live video and web HTML5 inputs to bring real-time interactive images into the show.”

On d3’s role, Millar added: “We used d3 alongside other packages to calculate all the angles, lenses and rigging solutions before building them 80m in the air. d3 allowed us to check various scenarios, the number of projectors, projection areas and more.”

The perpetual rose animation is scheduled to play every night during the O2’s England Rugby Campaign tournament throughout October, with fans continuing to post tweets despite England’s early exit from the tournament.

“d3 is a very powerful tool for this scale of projection,” concluded Millar. “We have been running a number of different shows since the installation. From interactive, web-based Twitter systems to helicopter shots, live music performances and the projection mapping, d3 has been the best tool for all of them.”

d3 technologies projection mapping tools