The Centre was originally opened in 2000, but just over three years ago the Government started to review ways in which it could restructure in order to have all its services online by 2005. It wanted to transform the way it did business internally, and at the same time improve dialogue - and so it turned to its nearby resource, BT Stepchange, who created the Innovation Centre, with environments that were more theatrical, virtual and dynamic, and with a reception area that would have high visual impact.
"The idea," said outgoing centre manager Joe Crofts, "was to move people's mindsets away from their day-to-day activity; the reception area, in particular, was designed to create an immediate 'wow' factor." To achieve this, theychose three of dnp's 60" Ultra Contrast Screens (UCS) as a dynamic, interactive welcome display for guests. "The other major change," continued Joe, "is that while we were already using a whiteboard and AV we wanted to make the space more interesting by connecting three demo spaces into one virtual area using the technology of conventional presentation rooms."
The conversion costs were in the region of £250,000-£300,000 - with around £100,000 of that dedicated to the new multimedia suites. The contract was awarded to Admiral NetMeeting Solutions, a division of the Admiral Group, headed by John Deighton. He was soon onsite evolving a solution with Joe Crofts based around electronic smartboards, revolving carousels to change the environments (between Home, Café and Office), and windows, apparently to the outside world, but which are in fact portrait-configured plasma screens displaying 'street scene' DVDs - all on Crestron automated environmental management.
The main focus is the three dnp 60" UCS screens, rear projected from three ceiling-mounted NEC GT950 projectors, which are in turn driven from a SEOS Scorpion processor. The dnp Ultra Contrast Screen has been developed for single lens projectors. The advanced optical lens system and the UCS lenticular offer high tolerance to ambient light and provide special technologies for enhancing contrast.
The Scorpion is at work the second guests arrive wearing their programmed name badges. Sensing the badge information, a PC relays an instruction to the Scorpion which triggers the welcome show over an interplanetary landscape background screen, before a chroma-keyed avatar 'talking head' appears to deliver the personalised welcome message from somewhere in outer space.
Concealed behind the dnp display is a live office, and since this obviated the use of a Paradigm rearpro projection rig, the NEC projectors - focused directly from the ceiling - were chosen in view of their horizontal lens shift facility. The Scorpion links to different devices via RS-232 - stretching the image across three screens in 3021 x 768 pixels horizontal.
Admiral have used dnp's display solutions in a wide variety of high-profile applications, including Vauxhall Motors, DSTL and QinetiQ. Inside the Innovation Centre, the facilities can now be configured with theatre-style, boardroom or informal room layouts, with fast internet access; PC or laptop back projection onto large touch-sensitive presentation screen; electronic whiteboard for fast capture and dissemination of notes; kiosk; DVD, CD and VHS video players and audio and videoconferencing. Switching is via Kramer and Extron devices while the discreet sound system's gain settings and stored and routed to the six zones via the DSP BSS Soundweb engine.
(Lee Baldock)
