Cinderella Castle at Disney's Magic Kingdom in Orlando has been morphed into an enormous projection surface with pixel mapping that envelops the architecture, rendering images onto its 3D geometry, including crenellations and turrets. The visually enhanced castle serves as the backdrop for the new twice-nightly 10-minute show, "The Magic, The Memories, and You!" with 501 new images of park guests inserted into each show.

"The castle is sculpted and not flat," points out Chuck Davis, who was responsible for the overall projection system design and implementation, working in conjunction with Kris Murray and Nigel Sadler of Green Hippo on the complex pixel mapping via eight Hippotizer media servers running a custom version of Uber Pan. A Miranda graphics system monitors the projectors, and a Fisher Technical Services Navigator control system opens and close panels in front of the projectors. A small screen is placed on the central balcony of the castle before the show for an additional projection surface for many of the guests' images.

"A different live show twice a day is a feat of technology and a major commitment on Disney's part," adds Davis, pointing out that it takes a crew of nine people to create and run the show every night. "The challenge is to get all the photos cropped into the right composition and to conform to the castle architecture. To be safe the cut-off for images is three to five hours before the show."

Eight stacks of two Christie Roadster S+20K projectors (total of 16) are placed in four locations: Main Street East and West, atop Cosmic Rays Starlight Cafe, and in Liberty Square. The projections bathe the castle in myriad colors, outline its architecture with snakes, engulf it in flames, and cover it with bouncing balls, as 501 images of park guests flash on the castle, with a few glimpses of Mickey Mouse and even Walt Disney, before the finale of fireworks lights up the sky.

Backstage Orlando and Projection Master Classes attendees at LDI2011 will go to the Magic Kingdom to see "The Magic, The Memories, and You!" on October 26.

Register today and be part of the action!

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