The LED fixtures are embedded in a three acre artificial lake. The PixelMAD system is controlling 24 universes of DMX and 4012 Color Kinetics' C-Splash 2 LED fixtures spread across the base of the 'Lake of Dreams'. The system gives eight layers of digital media playback and 1:1 pixel mapping.
The PixelMAD is running on a 2.5 GHz dual processor Apple Mac and all system hardware and software is specified by PID. The software is triggered via a GrandMA console. The GrandMA also controls other fixtures in and around the Lake including over 100 Martin MAC 2Ks, EC2s, Syncrolite 7Ks, Atomic Strobes, over 3000 Diversitronic strobes and 250 Altman and Hydrel exterior PAR lamps.
The Color Splash's are located under the Lake's surface in a regular grid pattern. When the lake is aerated (via thousands of air pipes meshed across its bottom), the LED fixtures enable the lake surface to come alive as a giant low res video screen.
Projected Image Digital's managing director David March was initially approached by the project's lighting designer Patrick Woodroffe and his associates, Paul Franklin and Adam Bassett in January 2004. Woodroffe was commissioned by Wynn Design and Development to design and specify a creative lighting scheme for the Lake of Dreams, plus all exterior lighting on and around the low rise areas. The appointed lighting contractor and installer was PRG Las Vegas, project managed for them by Jim Holladay.
The LED element of the Lake project came into the design process relatively late on. Woodroffe's team wanted the most adaptable control solution that would put no limit on what the LED surface might be asked to do. It also needed to be able to react to anything the Wynn design team might ask of the lighting department once on site, bearing in mind that installation was still over a year away at this stage.
Woodroffe and Franklin also specifically wanted a DMX triggered system that could be integrated into the lighting control. The PID team went to Las Vegas for a demonstration in May 2004, and shortly after, PixelMAD received the green light.
PixelMAD was chosen because it offered more layers that any other product they considered. Franklin had known its creator Richard Bleasdale since 1994 and had read about him customizing software to run PixelLine LED fixtures as a low res video surface on Radiohead's 2003 tour.
Patrick Woodroffe explains that the main technical challenge was finding an organic and instinctive way to control the Lake, complete with the number-crunching facility to do it quickly and precisely. He says, "Having committed to the idea of a colour changing lake we needed to control over 4000 individual light sources. We tested various options, and felt that PixelMAD was the right one for this application. Its ability to manipulate video and other media inputs combined with its own series of inbuilt effects generation gave us really limitless opportunities of bringing the lake to life. Despite the enormous technical challenges the system worked well and soon became second nature to our programmers."
Franklin says: "'Layers' were the key to producing complex effects that could be manipulated as quickly and easily as possible." Bleasdale adapted the software to enable them to use an additional ninth layer as a 'real time output display' for off-line programming. This later became a major bonus in convincing the client that PixelMAD was the right control system.
March says: "Working with Patrick and his team has been a pleasure from day one, as we worked over a period of twelve months on how to meet the client's brief for what was clearly a landmark project. They knew we had the right product
