Joystiq impressions: HP's Panoply and Pluribus

At HP's recent gaming media event, the company talked about its acquisition of VoodooPC and how HP fits into the console-heavy world of gaming. Specifically, HP seems to be positioning itself as a technology development company that will license its crazy inventions to the console companies. Mscape, an augmented-reality system is the most ambitious step in that direction, but two video projector concepts -- Panoply and Pluribus -- could also be ripe for the console space.
Both technologies assemble multiple, off-the-shelf projectors into a Voltron of a screen; Panoply combines several images on a curved, concave surface, while Pluribus combines and overlaps its projectors for big, bright images.
Panoply is currently in use in the room-sized Halo videoconferencing installations. At the press event, HP showed Panoply with two projectors on a concave arc. The two images stitched perfectly together to show a panoramic view of a racing game and an FPS.

HP sees Panoply being used in smaller scale applications, roughly with four projectors at most, while Pluribus scales far higher; a cluster of 12 projectors showed a wall-sized an Xbox 360 game of FIFA Soccer. Pluribus blasts its images on a flat surface, but its appeal is in both high resolutions -- by stitching adjacent images together -- and bright, detailed visuals by layering projections. The demo showed the 360 running at 720p, but the maximum resolution scales with the number of projectors.
In the demonstration, I walked in front of some of the projectors; the obstructed area grew dimmer, but since I didn't block all of them, the projectors continued to show the full screen image. And in the modestly lit -- although far from dark -- room, the layered images were noticeably brighter and clearer than a single projector. HP's engineers anticipate that if the technology reaches consumers, friends and neighbors with different projectors -- different brands and specs -- could come together to create a single, superior image.
HP didn't offer more specific thoughts on when Pluribus and Panoply might reach consumers, if at all; the event highlighted technology in development and left us to guess about "how much?" and other real-world details. Panoply looked good; it could be applied to arcade game designs, but seems less likely to reach general consumers. Pluribus, while still niche, would be welcome at our future BYO-projector Halo game nights.

HP sees Panoply being used in smaller scale applications, roughly with four projectors at most, while Pluribus scales far higher; a cluster of 12 projectors showed a wall-sized an Xbox 360 game of FIFA Soccer. Pluribus blasts its images on a flat surface, but its appeal is in both high resolutions -- by stitching adjacent images together -- and bright, detailed visuals by layering projections. The demo showed the 360 running at 720p, but the maximum resolution scales with the number of projectors.
In the demonstration, I walked in front of some of the projectors; the obstructed area grew dimmer, but since I didn't block all of them, the projectors continued to show the full screen image. And in the modestly lit -- although far from dark -- room, the layered images were noticeably brighter and clearer than a single projector. HP's engineers anticipate that if the technology reaches consumers, friends and neighbors with different projectors -- different brands and specs -- could come together to create a single, superior image.
HP didn't offer more specific thoughts on when Pluribus and Panoply might reach consumers, if at all; the event highlighted technology in development and left us to guess about "how much?" and other real-world details. Panoply looked good; it could be applied to arcade game designs, but seems less likely to reach general consumers. Pluribus, while still niche, would be welcome at our future BYO-projector Halo game nights.





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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ian Von Porter @ Apr 12th 2007 4:52AM
Pluburis sounds useless... buy a single brighter projector rather than 2 crappy ones and have to worry about overlaying their images perfectly. There are also ambient light screens that absorb ambient light rather than bounce them.
The projector array (panopoly) is more for industrial uses... again, just get a better projector and tell people not to walk in front of it.
sheppy @ Apr 12th 2007 10:27AM
I'm with Ian. As a guy who had to align projections on a six projector simulator... fuck that. Make it a single projector.
Matt @ Jun 29th 2007 11:17AM
You guys obviously haven't shopped for projectors.
Lower resolution projectors (800x600 or so) are pretty cheap these days (I've seen 'em for less than $400). Higher resolution projectors are VERY expensive. I've seen them recently for $10,000 or more. The cheapest 1920 x 1080 projector I've ever seen was $4,000. If you spend $2,400 on 6 cheap projectors and get the same image as a $4,000 projector, you have quite a bit of cash leftover. Even if the Pluribus system were $1,000, you'd still be ahead over the cheapest of the high-resolution projectors, and hugely ahead over the more expensive projectors.
The whole idea behind the system is that it makes multiple projectors quick and easy to align, because the system does the hard work for you.
Finally, I see no reason why the system couldn't work with better projectors too, giving you an even higher resolutions and brighter images.
Of course, we don't know prices, and we don't have a product you can buy yet, but this seems like a very promising technology to me.