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Ice Carving Company Delivers Consistent Products
Using design software, one company produces the most amazing ice sculptures around.Iceculture, Inc., one of the world’s largest ice carving companies with a staff of 50, used to design its creations the traditional way, by hand, and then cut and assembled ice blocks to form the final project. More recently, Iceculture has invested in ArtCAM software, which is used by the company’s team of designers to define the complete ice sculpture as a computer model. The model is later converted to computer numerical control (CNC) code that drives an ice router to create each of the pieces needed to bring the designer’s conception to life. “ArtCAM Pro helps us deliver a more consistent product in a fraction of the time required in the past,” said Sam Bayley, Production and Plant Manager with Iceculture, which is based in Hensall, Ontario.
Iceculture was founded by Julian Bayley and his late wife Ann in 1989 with a single machine the size of a dishwasher that could turn out two ice punch bowls every seven days. The company has grown based largely on technical innovation. For example, Bayley worked with a colleague in the ice business and a router manufacturer in Calgary to develop a CNC ice router for cutting ice in the late 1990s. And it dramatically reduced the time needed to produce ice sculpture designs. He also designed his own ice lathe, which shapes blocks of ice into spheres and cylindrical objects such as footballs, pillars, wine bottles and vases.
Iceculture produces crystal clear blocks of ice in a machine that freezes ice from the bottom up, forcing bubbles and impurities to the surface where they are siphoned off when the blocks are harvested. The blocks not used in the company’s freezer studio are shipped around the world to customers as far away as Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Dubai and Greece.
One of the company’s higher profile projects involves providing 3D ice sculptures, ice furniture, ice lounges and other items to the Toronto Film Festival. Most years a major event is based around the winner of the film festival, and Iceculture is often asked to provide one or more sculptures for the event. For example, a film about ice hockey recently won the top award and Iceculture produced a 20-foot-long and 9-foot-wide hockey rink made entirely of ice as a focal point at the event. The ice rink included logos of the corporate sponsors, holes and hatches for shot glasses, table space for served food and many other features.
The combination of ArtCAM Pro and CNC ice routers has enabled Iceculture designers to implement more efficient manufacturing methods that also produce more accurate and higher quality finished products. “We started working with ArtCAM when our business was very young,” Sam Bayley said. “One of the first benefits we saw was the software’s ability to help us replicate corporate logos quickly and accurately.” Logos are a very important part of our business. ArtCAM easily converts bitmap logos provided by sponsors into a vector file that can in turn be converted into a CNC toolpath to drive an ice router.
In the case of the hockey rink, Cate McDonald, one of Iceculture’s designers, took measurements from an actual hockey rink that the ice version was based on. She drew the rink in 2D in ArtCAM and scaled it down to fit the size of the ice sculpture. She created a standard size ice block and copied it several times. She tailored the ice blocks to the basic rink design. The rink itself incorporated many holes used to hold shot glasses. McDonald created these holes using the double block rotate copy feature of ArtCAM. “I specified that I needed a 1-1/4 inch diameter hole, how many rows and columns I wanted, the offset between the rows and columns and the minimum gap between the holes,” McDonald said. “The software then automatically generated a pattern that filled the space with the maximum number of holes while following the rules I provided.” McDonald made a few adjustments to the parameters in order to improve the appearance of the hole pattern and each time the software regenerated it in seconds according to her new specifications.
Iceculture has upgraded to ArtCAM Pro, which provides a wide range of new capabilities such as the ability to design and build 3D contoured surfaces. This capability came in handy on several recent film festival projects. In one case the sponsor of the event was a large soft drink manufacturer so Iceculture was commissioned to build an ice sculpture about eight feet high that replicated a famous soft drink bottle. Iceculture designers imported a 3D model of the bottle into ArtCAM, simplified the model, divided it into blocks of ice, and generated toolpaths to cut each block with an ice router. The result was stunningly accurate 3D representation of the original bottle.
Matt White, CNC Programmer for Iceculture, designed a 3D ice carving of a swan. He started with a 2D bitmap that he imported into ArtCAM. He converted the bitmap into a vector model and then divided the various sections of the model such as the head, wings, body and neck into a total of 50 different features. “Once I have created a feature, I can easily do different things with it such as copy, resize, move, etc.,” White said. He used ArtCAM’s two-rail sweep feature to convert the head, neck and wing into 3D. Then used sculpting tools such as “smooth” and “smudge” to blend the resulting 3D shapes together. White saved time by first creating the right half of the swan and creating a mirror image to complete the swan. Finally, he used ArtCAM to produce CNC toolpaths used to produce the swan on the ice router.
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Controls for World's Largest Aquatic Show
Medialon has been selected by ECA2 to be the main show control system on "Mangrove Groove" aquatic show, a brand new stunning 38-minute multimedia show in Octbay, Shenzhen, China.ECA2 is a French-based company that specializes in creating and producing major events and shows around the world. The group designed and produced the “Mangrove Groove” show, which features the world’s largest aquatic stage ever built. It covers an area of 5,600 square meters.
Every evening, up to 5,000 spectators celebrate the return of the birds in an amazing decor dedicated to the mangrove. The artistic and technological challenges represent the forces of nature, staging the four elements merged with the magic of captivating images, with water, fire, lighting, video, and air effects, all entirely controlled and synchronized by a Medialon Manager PRO Show Control system.
Thanks to Medialon Manager Panel, free user interface design tool, several Graphic User Interfaces (GUI) have been created. From a single touch of a button, the AV Technical staff can run the show (show mode), make video tests (test video mode), check the status of the devices (status mode), and much more.
The Status mode is the kind of tool that is very useful for technical maintenance. Based on a custom user interface, it has been especially designed to show the technicians the exact location of each device. Access buttons allow the direct checking of the status of all the AV devices as well as eight temperature sensors, one wind sensor, fourteen Uninterruptible Power Supplies, pressure levels of water-effect pumps and compressors, video projectors’ lamp statuses, useful lamp life span calculations, and many other features.
For a maximum reliability, two Medialon Manager units run synchronously creating a full redundant system that switch automatically at any time (even during the show) from unit A to unit B or from unit B to unit A if any unit failure is detected. The Manager has also been programmed to retrieve log files from devices located in different areas of the stage to help show technicians see an issue with an AV device has cropped up during the show.
“Medialon Show Control system helps us run, synchronize, and monitor hundreds of special effects. All of these devices interact with more than 50 actors, acrobats, and dancers, and have proven to be safe and reliable. The tools are used to show our interpretation of the life in the mangrove, surrounded by an incredible amount of mystery and enchantment,” explains Jean-Christope Canizares, ECA2’s Show Producer.
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PL Mount Zoom Lenses
Canadian Directors of Photography rent Fujinon equipment for television series.Seeking exceptional optical quality for fast-paced episodic television productions, three Canadian Directors of Photography (DPs) recently rented a complement of Fujinon Premier PL Mount zoom lenses from Sim Video—a leading Toronto-based broadcast and film equipment rental company.
The three notable Canadian DPs—Mike McMurray, David Perrault, and Rudy Blahacek (in photo)—chose Fujinon Premier PL zoom lenses to shoot the Syfy television series for broadcast on NBC/Universal’s Syfy Channel, CTV, and Lifetime. In choosing equipment for these productions, they selected from the Sim Video PL lens inventory, which includes: Premier PL 18-85 T2.0 zooms, Premier PL 24-180 T2.6 lenses; and Premier PL 75-400 T2.8-3.8’s. Designed for high-end 35mm film and digital cinematography, the Fujinon PL Mount product family offers focal lengths ranging from 14.5mm to 400mm.
DP McMurray, CSC, has been using the Premier PL lenses to shoot “Warehouse 13,” an American fantasy/drama series for the Syfy Channel. “In shooting ‘Warehouse 13,’ equipment reliability is crucial. Fujinon lenses are workhorses in the film industry, especially for TV series work, because they produce crisp, clean images and color-match extraordinarily well with each other,” he explained. “The Fujinon Premier PL 18-85 T2.0 is an excellent wide to mid-range lens, while the Premier PL 75-400 T2.8-3.8 takes care of all my long lens needs. But my favorites are the two Premier PL 24-180 T2.6’s that I use with my A and B cameras because, with their wide focal lengths, lens changes are minimal.”
DP Perrault, CSC, has also been using Sim Video’s Fujinon PL zoom lenses to shoot “Alphas,” a new action thriller series for the Syfy Channel featuring five ordinary people who acquire super human physical and mental capabilities.
“I’ve been using the Fujinon Premier PL 75-400 T2.8-T3.8 and Premier PL 18-85 T2.0 to shoot season one of ‘Alphas,’ and they’re both beautiful lenses,” Perrault said. “These compact lenses offer broad focal ranges, great coatings, and flare rejection qualities, nice markings for focus, and in particular, gorgeous ‘bokehs’ on the 18-85.” Considered the mark of an exceptional lens, a bokeh is the blur in the out-of-focus areas of an image. While some lenses produce bokehs that are unpleasant and distracting, Fujinon PL Mount lenses have the distinction of rendering very aesthetically pleasing blurs.
Regarding the Fujinon Premier PL 18-85 T2.0 lens, DP Blahacek said, “I will always carry this lens in my package. The resolution is amazing, and the lack of aberrations coupled with the fast T-stop put this lens in a class of its own.” Blahacek has been using this lens for almost two years to shoot several projects including: “Score: A Hockey Musical,” a film featured at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival; “Salem Falls,” a TV mini-series to air on Lifetime in 2012; and “The Listener,” a Syfy TV series now in its second season on CTV, Canada’s leading broadcast network.
These three DPs, all with a long list of American and Canadian television credits, have long relied upon Sim Video for equipment rentals as well as responsive technical and customer support. Sim Video has locations in Los Angeles, Vancouver, Atlanta, Halifax, and Beijing to better serve its customers. Sim Video’s Fujinon Premier PL mount zoom lenses, as well as its Fujinon “E” Series Zooms and HD ENG zooms are ideal companions to its high-end camera inventory, which includes the Arri Alexa, Red Epic, Phantom HD, Sony F35 and F800.
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Entertainment Engineering BEST OF 2011
Every year about this time, the editors of Entertainment Engineering look over the past year to see what our readers found interesting. It doesn't appear to matter whether a story covers one page or two pages, the most interesting pieces always find their way to the top.HERE'S WHAT WE HAVE FOR YOU THIS YEAR:
ELECTRONICS COMPONENTS
ENGINEER DESIGNS ELECTRONIC GEAR
Helmets, suits, and props for TRON: Legacy come together with CAD software, electronics components, and rapid-prototyping equipment. See how one systems designer at ToyShoppe Systems combines art with engineering. Read how often the power packs had to be changed to keep the “lights on” for multiple takes on the movie set.
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BATTERY CHARGING
INNOVATIONS FOR CHARGING AND PORTABLE POWER
With all the new electronics that came out last year, there appears to be a huge need for chargers and portable power units. Energizer met this demand for more reliable and longer-lasting power by developing products that help consumers get more out of their devices while they’re away from wires and wall sockets.
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MOTORS AND MOTION CONTROL
SHANGHAI SPHERE ARRAY
To provide smooth operation with very tight space limitations, this kinetic art piece required specially designed components, controlled by a high-tech automation system and software. Fisher Technical Services, a Las Vegas-based entertainment automation company, used semicustom, Class 5 SmartMotors from Animatics in their design. The motors raise and lower over 1000 “floating” balls to produce an amazing show.
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COLOR GRADING TOOLS
TECHNICOLOR USES DAVINCI RESOLVE ON “THE FIGHTER”
Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve is a high-performance color correction solution for Mac OSX and Linux computers. It supports more real time color correction than any other system because it’s not limited by the performance of the computer it’s running on. Read how the MAC OSX version of Resolve provides strong performance in a low cost solution.
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DESIGN SOFTWARE
TINKERING ENGINEERS BECOME PRIME DEFENSE CONTRACTORS
Today, with the help of SolidWorks® software, the Howe twins, Geoff and Mike, are able to invent extreme “Mad Max”-style vehicles with astonishing capabilities. Known in Defense Department R&D circles as the “The Wright brothers of the military,” the prime defense contractors also star in Discovery Channel’s “Black Ops Brothers, Howe & Howe Tech” show.
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MOTORS AND MOTION CONTROL
GETTING SWINGING LIGHTS TO STOP ON A DIME
At the Royal Shakespeare Company’s refurbished venue, lightweight lights are hung from swinging cables. A unique design stops the swinging to put the spotlight on the actors. The challenge was in the pendulum effect, but using the right motors and motion control components, engineers were able to provide a system that made watching plays a pleasure.
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DIGITAL STORAGE
PROVIDING INTEROPERABILITY USING A REMOVABLE CARTRIDGE
Suitable for third-party manufacturers, Seagate made available their GoFlex™ external hard drives. This family of external drives provides the ability to use an assortment of storage products and interfaces to correspond with consumers’ needs. The company’s third-party products attest to growth of digital media consumption on an increasing number of consumer electronic products.
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PROTOTYPING SERVICES
PADDLE MANUFACTURER ACQUIRES BIG BOX SUCCESS
Ed Halm found himself fighting to maneuver his kayak through the swampy undergrowth in the backwaters of the Econlockhatchee River in Central Florida. As a retired Navy officer and survival instructor, he realized the problem he was having was due to the design of his paddle: fine for slicing through open water, but for gnarly conditions, he wanted something with a bit more grip—something with the teeth to negotiate the hazards of shallow water.
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Taking Cameras into the Air
Aerial coordinator uses an alternative to IMAX for a feature film.When pilot and aerial coordinator Marc Wolff began prepping for a large format feature to be shot in Budapest, he decided to pair Pictorvision’s Eclipse with the Iwerks camera, as an alternative to IMAX®. Eclipse is a gyro-stabilized aerial camera system, and Iwerks is a . “With large format filming becoming so popular in the past few years, it’s a relief to have a choice between IMAX and Iwerks for stabilized aerial filming,” he says. “And, of course, to be able to pair the equipment with the Eclipse aerial stabilized system helps too.”
Wolff adds, “From a director’s perspective, I can get shots that no other aerial system can deliver. From a producer’s point-of-view, we can work more efficiently, save money, and get more material on-screen for each dollar spent. With the Eclipse we use less flying time to get our work done and are able to achieve more work in a given day. And, putting my pilot or aerial coordinator’s hat on, it takes fewer takes to get a shot, which increases safety and reduces risk me and my crew.”
Wolff says that the installation of the Iwerks camera into the Eclipse was seamless. “The Eclipse performs it’s magic with the Iwerks camera as it does with any of the other many cameras that can be installed in it. By adding the Iwerks camera to this long list, it provides the filmmaker with an even greater choice of film format in which to do aerial filming.”
When Wolff’s equipment was up and running, he shot a series of sequences including shooting at a very low height, roof-top level, over the center of Budapest, literally dodging antennas as he flew. “Such flights over major European cities are very controversial from both a safety and environmental noise point-of-view,” he explains. “The aviation authorities give us special exemptions from the law to carry out such flights but they limit the number of sorties we can fly and restrict them to a very short duration.
“We did a shot flying between the spires on the roof of the beautiful, historic parliament buildings on the banks of the River Danube,” he adds. “We were allowed to do it only once but, thankfully, with the Eclipse’s amazing performance and reliability, we could be sure of getting the shot, and also knew that, thanks to the stunning large-format quality of the Iwerks camera, it would look amazing on the big screen.”
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Four-Quadrant PWM Servo Controller
This compact and powerful device provides control of DC motors to 72 watts.The maxon ESCON 36/2 DC is a fast digital current controller with an enormous bandwidth for optimal motor current/torque control. The drift-free, yet extremely dynamic, speed behavior enables a speed range of 1 to 150,000 rpm. The unit provides a wide range of functions, with fully configurable digital and analog inputs and outputs. When matched with maxon’s wide range of motors, high demanding and dynamic drive solutions are possible. Additionally, it can be run in various operating modes (speed controller (closed loop), speed controller (open loop), current controller).
This ultra-compact servo controller is controlled by means of an analog set value. The value can be specified by means of analog voltage, an external or internal potentiometer, a defined value, or by means of a PWM signal with variable duty cycle. Other functions include the ability to enable or disable the power stage depending on the direction of rotation, or to use speed ramps for acceleration and deceleration. The speed can be regulated by means of a digital incremental encoder (2-channel, with/without line driver), DC tacho, or without encoder (IxR compensation).
Designed to be user-friendly with an easy start-up, no in-depth knowledge of drive technology is required. When the servo controller is connected to a PC via a USB port, it can easily and efficiently be configured with the “ESCON Studio” graphical user interface. During startup and configuration of the inputs and outputs, monitoring, data recording, and diagnostics, the user has access to a large variety of functions and is assisted by user-friendly software wizards, as well as an automatic procedure for fine-tuning the controller. No additional external filters or motor chokes are required and pre-assembled cables for the startup are available as accessories.
The ESCON 36/2 DC has protective circuits against overcurrent, excess temperature, under- and over-voltage, against voltage transients, and against short-circuits in the motor cable. It is equipped with protected digital inputs and outputs and an adjustable current limitation for protecting the motor and the load. The motor current and the actual speed of the motor shaft can be monitored by means of the analog output voltage.
The large range for the input voltage and the operating temperature allows flexible use in a variety of drive applications, including mobile systems.
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PAC 12 Trophy Design
Rapid prototyping and other services help to create the new PAC 12 Trophy that was designed by internationally recognized artist Archie Held.Archie Held has been creating sculpture since the late 1970s. He studied at UCLA for his graduate and undergraduate degrees, and founded the Archie Held Studios in 1985 (Richmond, CA). Archie has produced over 500 pieces of original artwork, and currently employs ten talented artists and metal fabricators. He primarily works in bronze and stainless steel to produce simple and elegant designs.
Archie Held Studios won the competition to design the PAC 12 College Football Playoff Trophy this year. The actual job required that three trophies be manufactured: one full-scale model to be awarded to the team that wins the PAC 12 Championship game, one full-scale model to be kept by one of the sponsors of the game, and one third-scale model to be given to the Most Valuable Player.
Creativity in Design
“The idea for the trophy came to me pretty quickly,” said Archie Held. “I played football in high school, and can tell you that anyone who plays on a winning team knows exactly what that feels like.” The idea of having a competition for the best trophy design was to initiate a new and contemporary look to the trophy, something different than a cup, something that would portray the thrill of victory.
Archie explains his creative inspiration for the trophy this way: “In football, a win may have several different images to draw from. One image might be the football as it flies between the goal posts, or the referee holding his arms in air at the end of the final play, or the player holding up the football that he just caught to make the touchdown.” To Archie, they presented similar gestures. “Add to these images the cool logo of the PAC 12, and you have a concept,” he adds. “The idea of having the “V” for victory was totally secondary to the stronger, and more human images that came to me first.”
After the initial sketches were completed, Archie refined his idea. “During this time, I was further reminded that the twelve teams had been separated between North and South, and again this idea fit into my design. In my sketches, the form splits and curves backward—the ball holds the two pieces together. The design spoke to me through emotion and form,” Archie said. “This is what I do for a living, and the whole design had to click in order to feel right. This felt right.”
Technology in Manufacturing
The original design of the PAC 12 Trophy was created using Alias Design software from Autodesk. “I worked with an outside designer to tighten my original drawings before contacting Solid Concepts to help with production,” Archie said. “It was easy for Solid Concepts to convert my files into whatever software they chose to use to create the master pattern for the trophy. “Transferring files from one system to another can create small amounts of fragmenting that needs to be cleaned up before the pattern can be made,” according to Jesse Marin, Solid Concept’s project manager for the trophy build. “We take care of any minor adjustments in-house.”
“The whole process had to happen within a very short window,” Archie said. “We had only three weeks from start to finish.”
“Although it may sound simple—just pour metal into a mold and you have a trophy—there are a lot of things to consider, and steps to perform,” Jesse explains.
The trophies were to be cast out of 17-4 PH steel, which needed to be welded together and polished to look like Archie’s original design. The larger trophies were about 30 inches tall, 17 inches wide and about 14 inches deep. Because they would be cast out of steel, they would end up weighing about forty pounds.
The master pattern for both trophy sizes was built using Solid Concepts’ QuickCast process. Solid Concepts’ combination of a proprietary QuickCast build style, SC 1000 photopolymer material, and their clear coating process provides superior investment casting patterns for foundries, allowing customers to produce functional metal prototypes without producing hard tooling, which often takes several weeks. This process is perfect for a short run item like the PAC 12 trophy. Plus, the QuickCast process can be completed at a third of the cost and in ten percent of the time as traditional methods, such as using wax or wood patterns.
QuickCast patterns are up to 35% lighter than conventional stereolithography patterns, which translates to higher yield in the casting process. When those patterns are made from the company’s SC 1000 they also provide proportionately less ash and minimal thermal expansion forces during flash firing. SC 1000 was specifically developed for the QuickCast process. It provides high green strength, greater accuracies without using as much material, and resists water absorption. Solid Concepts’ proprietary QuickCast build style offers complete internal draining and excellent final surface sealing on walls and features over 0.060 in.
After the Quickcast pattern was made, the next step was outsourced to Aurora Castings (Santa Paula, CA) the company that would pour the casting. Aurora Castings is a private company that specializes in custom and OEM DieCasting manufacturing. The trophy was poured in three separate pieces, which included the two arms and the ball. After hardening, which took between two and three hours, the components were outsourced to a nearby polishing house in Oxnard, CA to be polished to the exact finish as Archie’s design.
The nine trophy pieces (three pieces for each of the three trophies) were then sent back to Aurora Castings to be welded together into the final trophy. A second round of polishing was necessary once the pieces were welded to assure a smooth and perfect look. Archie also designed the granite base for each trophy. With the base, the final weight of one of the larger trophies was approximately 58 pounds.
The PAC 12 Championship Trophy was presented to the winning team on Friday, December 2nd just after the championship game. At that time, the teams name was engraved into the granite base. The entire process of creating the 2011 PAC 12 Championship Trophy in such a short time period was a mixture of the creative intuition and passion of Archie Held, and the fast turnaround QuickCast process supplied by Solid Concepts.
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Arizona Hospital Goes Green with Energy-Saving LED Lighting Fixtures
New lighting makes large parking lot safer for cheaper.Pressed on by its security department that was anxious to have better lighting in the hospital’s parking lot for the security cameras to operate more efficiently, the Facilities Maintenance Department of Kingman Regional Medical Center approached Howard Industrial Sales in nearby Chandler to initiate energy savings comparisons and a lighting upgrade proposal in order to increase the light output in its vast parking lot.
Nestled in the foothills of the Hualapai Mountain range, the award-winning Kingman Regional Medical Center (KRMC) is a community-owned 235-bed healthcare facility located in Kingman, Arizona—the seat of Mohave County. It is the largest provider of health and wellness services in northwestern Arizona and has been recognized as one of the nation’s top 100 hospitals. At 3,500 feet in elevation, the hospital sits in a beautiful high-desert rural community.
The medical center was using 250-watt HPS lamps in 88 fixtures throughout the campus, running on voltage ranges from 120VAC to 277VAC. The poles are mostly around 16-20 feet high, with some in the 24- to 26-foot range; they are spaced between 40 and 60 feet apart in the parking lot.
When Howard Industrial Sales made a demonstration of the 88-watt LEDtronics SLL003P-30X2W-XPW-005 LED luminaire, the chairman of the board, managers, and other executives were impressed by the light output and the resulting detail clarity in the security cameras, not to mention the energy savings of 202 watts per fixture.
The proposed upgrade to LED lighting also coincided with the KRMC embracing the green movement in recent months and undertaking a leadership position in environmentally friendly solutions in their community.
An initial order to replace the 88 HPS lamps was shipped within a few months, followed by another shipment to bring the total to 104 LED lamps. The shoeboxstyle LED luminaires use over 60 percent less energy than the conventional HPS units that were being used, and require much less maintenance in the way of bulb and ballast replacement. The LEDtronics LED parkinglot lights are provided with a 5-year warranty and will provide useful light with no more than 30% light degradation at 50,000 hours of operation. This results in an estimated savings slightly in excess of $100,000 during that time frame.
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ToolsXpress
Web page provides engineers with information on evaluation/development kits and tooling for applications in entertainment and many other industries.Digi-Key’s ToolsXpress Tech Zone provides engineers with information on evaluation/development kits and tools for some of the most prominent silicon suppliers in the market. Whether the designer is looking for OEM boards, wireless modules, programmers, emulators, or software, the ToolsXpress TechZone aids in these tasks.
ToolsXpress TechZone provides the same information formerly found on the devtoolsxpress.com website. Engineers can access development tools, development kits, software, product training modules, and white papers within the ToolsXpress TechZone. Engineers can also view featured products and access Digi-Key’s Design Service Providers and DEsign Support Services for additional help.
“ToolsXpress is your one-stop-shop for development tools and support,” said Mark Zack, Digi-Key’s vice president of semiconductor product. “We have stock on-hand, ready for overnight delivery, from the broadest set of suppliers representing the widest variety of tools, kits, and software.”
Digi-Key’s ToolsXpress TechZone provides information about the following product lines: embedded, microcontrollers, wireless, and energy harvesting.
Additionally, a Tools Xpress Community is now available in Digi-Key’s TecXchange community forum to allow engineers the opportunity to discuss their development projects and seek the expertise of those within the community.
As the integrated Internet-based distributor of electronic components, information about and inventory of millions of products is accessible to customers around the globe, with all products shipped from Digi-Key’s single, North American location. The company’s integrated business model provides product and support information online to help put engineers and procurement professionals in control as they solve tough product development challenges.
Digi-Key is a full-service provider of both prototype/design and production quantities of electronic components, offering more than two million products from over 470 quality name-brand manufacturers.
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Voice-Automated Video Production
No operator needed during live productionsBroadcast Pix™ today announced VOX™, a breakthrough product for cost-effective live video production that works with any Granite™, Mica™, or Slate™ systems to produce voice-activated video productions. VOX eliminates the need for an operator during live productions, as it detects which microphone is being used and uses software to switch to an appropriate camera position and add graphics. VOX is suitable for government and corporate meetings, interviews, video coverage of radio programs, and other productions with multiple microphones, and can be used for television broadcasts, Internet streaming, and in-house projection.
While VOX can simply switch cameras, it has the intelligence to do much more. VOX integrates with Broadcast Pix’s built-in Fluent™ Macros to create automatic video-follow-audio. Fluent Macros can be programmed to select camera presets, roll clips and animations, add or remove titles, and even execute powerful compositions such as up to six picture-in-pictures for interviews. Multiple macros can be assigned to each microphone – and selection criteria can be established – so automated productions can offer variety in shot selection and graphics, as if a technical director was at the controls.
“Broadcast Pix is known for integrated production systems that create compelling live video with minimal staff. Now, VOX can create great video with no operator at all,” said Ken Swanton, president of Broadcast Pix. “It’s a breakthrough in cost-effective production.”
VOX is already in use at Q-music, a radio network in Belgium and Holland. Q-music broadcasted live concerts and other events from its Q-Beach House in Ostend, Belgium, and streamed video programming on the Internet. The video productions were part of a pilot project for the network’s upcoming studio-based “Visual Radio” programming, which will be produced in three facilities with VOX and Broadcast Pix Mica systems.
The house was rigged with 12 cameras, including four in the on-site radio studio that were controlled through VOX. With the help of integrator Burst Video, Q-music created several macros for each studio microphone. As a result, while the video followed the audio, there were a variety of directing commands (selected randomly by the system) to produce more appealing production value.
“It is easy to put a camera in a studio,” said Rudi Wynants, engineer at Q-music, “but it is not so easy to make this interesting to watch. Broadcast Pix VOX makes it more dynamic by not giving the audience the feeling that everything is automated by a computer. For normal operations, the system runs completely standalone.”
Housed in a 1 RU chassis with eight microphone inputs, VOX includes camera control software for Panasonic and Sony robotic camera systems, and connects to any Broadcast Pix system via an RS-232 serial cable. Multiple VOX boxes can be cascaded to support up to 104 microphones.
Conditions can be set to prevent coughs or one-word comments from changing cameras, minimizing unnecessary camera changes. Microphone inputs can also be prioritized, so a host, for example, can be given priority over guests. Plus, a host can control VOX using a small override panel, through the included SoftPanel software on a laptop or Android device, or with an iPad or iPhone app. As a result, the host can roll an introduction or a commercial, or even override the automated VOX control to bring up a specific shot.
Broadcast Pix systems provide a control surface for combining cameras, clips and graphics to create compelling live video. These surfaces enable total control of the built-in multi-format switcher, clip store, graphics system with a Harris or Chyron CG, and device controls. Its Fluent™ workflow enables files and data to be easily incorporated from other parts of the studio. Broadcast Pix systems are a fraction of the cost of a conventional control room to buy, staff and operate. System range from small systems controlled by a touch-screen to sophisticated 2 M/E control panels.
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