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Recently, we built a 5x3 mini-wall for TRECC using 18" NEC lcd panels. The panels are
mounted onto an aluminum structure designed by Albert Khakshour that also
holds the cluster of 16 PCs (MicroATX form factor, aluminum cases). The unit
is on wheels for easy movement.
We arrived at the current configuration for the following reasons:
My job was to make the software from our projector-based tiled wall work
on the mini-wall as well. I made small changes to my movieplayer (npb) to allow
for rotated tiles. I also created a Chromium configuration to simulate the
"paned window" effect. Basically, the borders between the panels
are represented by hidden pixels in the final rendering window. This means
that parts of the final image are "occluded" by the borders and are not
displayed. As a result, it looks like you are looking out of a window rather
than seeing a bunch of disconnected images.
Here are some pictures of the mini wall.
We took the mini-wall to SC 2002 and the reaction was very positive. Based
on my experience, using lcd panels for a display wall works well with some
content and not so well with other content. Specifically, content that has
rectilinear features in it does not work well with the panel borders.
With other content, such as the movies shown in the pictures, it works
great. It really does feel like you are looking out of window.
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This is an archive of my NCSA website from 2003
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