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 (FTSI) is a Las Vegas-based entertainment automation company. The company’s capabilities span the entertainment world from theaters to rock concerts and from movie sets to theme parks. FTSI’s mechanical design and fabrication services, automation software, and show control products, like their Navigator™ Automation System, are used extensively on some of the most technologically advanced attractions in the world, from TEA awards-winning theme park attractions for Disney to giant touring productions and artist like Lady Gaga, Metallica, and The Black Eyed Peas.

For the Shanghai Sphere Array, Fisher Technical Services designed, fabricated, programmed, and installed 1008 spheres on 1008 individual motors as the center kinetic art piece in the Chinese Private Enterprise Pavilion for the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, China.

The overall display includes 1008 150mm diameter spheres, each suspended and motivated by its own micro winch. The spheres are arranged in a flat grid that measures 18 feet x 56 feet, with sphere spacing on 12 inch centers. For dynamic range and performance capacity, each winch is able to reach speeds of up to 9.8 feet per second. Overall, the Shanghai Sphere Array is a breathtaking exhibit with the 1008 individual spheres dancing and floating across the stage.

To provide the client with unlimited freedom to explore static shapes, waveforms, and free-flowing dynamic animation, FTSI provided an intuitive means of programming each of the 1008 winches. After all, an entertainment automation system isn’t effective unless a creative team can quickly and easily express themselves through the machinery. To achieve ease of use, FTSI programmed the individual movement of each of the spheres using simple video files. A 1,008 pixel grayscale video frame was constructed, with each pixel’s grayscale value corresponding to the height of an individual sphere on a frame-by-frame basis. In this way, playback of a video file within this frame with a simple color gradient from white to black would produce a spread of spheres from the lowest point of travel to the highest, depending on the gray scale value of each pixel in the frame.

This elegant interface allowed the creative team to use any video compositing tool to create the shapes, effects, and motion profiles they desired in a live dynamic setting, with no additional programming or rendering time required. A pre-visualization environment was built to allow programmers to view the movement in simulation before being played on the actual array.

The standard Navigator communication backbone incorporates a high speed, real time deterministic protocol. In the case of the sphere array, the communication capabilities of the miniature motors were integrated into the network through Navigator's communication abstraction layer, which allows the system to take in data in almost any format, modify it, and relay it back out in almost any other format with no discernable lag. To provide the communication speed necessary to coordinate 1008 individual winches in real time, Navigator communicated through the abstraction layer in its "EtherCAT Master" mode, which distributes data via an extremely high speed real time industrial Ethernet-based protocol.

The motors used for the kinetic piece were semi-custom Class 5 SmartMotors designed and manufactured by Animatics. The motors would need to lift and lower their respective loads in such a synchronized, fluid fashion that the production would look more like a computer generated animation than a life-size performance. They also required Contouring Mode so that one, a few, or all of the motors would be able to respond to live, real-time commands in coordinated fashion. The motors were also customized with a brake and CANopen communications option.

Each SmartMotorâ„¢ was attached to the cable at the top of each sphere and fashioned to raise and lower over 25 feet in quick, smooth succession over a large grid suspended above an 1100 square foot stage. The Class 5 SmartMotor was able to provide Contouring Mode at data packet rates fast enough to allow for the fluid movement of all components of the performance. The integrated brake ensured that the sphere motion would automatically lock if there was a loss of power, and a closed loop velocity servo was integral to ensuring accurate speed control.

In addition to the sphere array, FTSI provided the show control system for the attraction. Using the show control programming tools incorporated into Navigator in conjunction with an FTSI SCU-1 Show Controller, the projection, lighting, and sound system were fully integrated with the array motion and playback. The same Navigator system also provided the master clock control and full sequence programming for the entire attraction.

The entire array was manufactured, assembled, and tested in FTSI's 60,000 square foot production facility in Las Vegas, after which it was disassembled, packed, and shipped to Shanghai. The final installation commenced in early February, providing only three months to reassemble, program and integrate one of the world's most complex automation projects. In all, from first call to opening night, FTSI had six months to design, create, program, test, ship, and install the Shanghai Sphere array, and with a top-notch technical team, a very creative client, the power of the Navigator automation system, and the Animatics SmartMotors, they pulled it off without a hitch, going on to receive top honors at the conclusion of Expo for the display.

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