The visitor centre concept was developed, designed and produced by Promarket. Protech Integration, an Israel-based AV integration company, designed, made, installed and programmed the entire multimedia and control system of the Better Place centre. Protech selected Medialon Manager Show and Media Control software to be the main AV controller of the Centre.
The Visitor Centre offers the public to come and familiarise themselves with all the aspects of the Better Place solution: a fully electric, battery-powered car and comprehensive infrastructure that includes charge spots and a battery switch station. From the outside, the 750sq.m Centre looks like a big concrete drum while inside visitors live a futuristic and unique virtual experience.
"The producer, Dror Leiba from Promarket, is the creator of the concept and has created a whole experience centre. My task was to make his vision come true", says Itay Salant, project manager from Protech Integration.
When entering the Center, guests are led into a 30-seat auditorium made of recycled car seats where they can watch a video on a large panorama screen describing the problems inherent to an automobile market based on fossil fuels. The multimedia show continues with a hologram projection of Shay Agassi, the founder of Better Place. Individual screens are placed alongside the seats, giving the audience a feel of the EV driving experience. As part of the show, a real Renault Fluence Z car makes a grand appearance on a moving stage.
One Medialon Manager licence controls all the AV equipment used on the show, including 30 High Definition video channels, which are played in frame accurate synchronization by Showlogix software players, DMX lighting, eight projectors, three LCD screens and a multichannel sound processor.
The Medialon system is used to synchronise the Logix-4D controller with a three-channel Dataton Watchout system, lighting effects and a moving stage. Thanks to Medialon Manager Panel software, Protech Engineering has designed touch panel user interfaces to allow the visitor centre guides to easily trigger events and shows via five Calypso IP touch panels.
The tour then gives each visitor the opportunity to drive an electric vehicle, which takes place on a specially-designed 1.5k test track. After driving the car, the guests are taken into the interactive Content Centre where they receive answers to many questions concerning the electric solution. Here, Medialon Manager is used to control and interact with 25 custom Flash applications as well as a Database server. The result of this installation is to allow the synchronization of visitor touch interaction, peripheral lighting and multi-channel movies.
(Jim Evans)
