Marvel Universe Live: BlackTrax Q&A

BalckTrax Beacon
Marvel Universe Live uses the newest generation of BlackTrax as a high-tech motion tracking system. Live Design chats with Gil Densham, president of CAST Group, about this new technology:
 
1) Please describe how BlackTrax motion tracking solution works with Marvel Universe Live. For this question, you can go into set up, installation, and operation of the system.
 
For Marvel Universe Live, BlackTrax was used in conjunction with both the automated lighting and multimedia projection systems. Using BlackTrax's LED stringers that are installed in costumes, props, and set pieces, we are able to tell the moving light fixtures where and when to point and what size coverage to maintain, as well as tell d3 Technologies media servers where to project on to the moving set pieces. BlackTrax also supported d3 in telling the media server where the 25 superheroes were and to be able to project on them with items like Iron Man's lasers and Thor's hammer for video effects. 
 
This system uses 16 propriety 1.7mps infrared cameras strategically located around the scenery’s edge. The cameras are installed as part of the touring rig, hung, focused, and calibrated in each venue as the show moves. When running, the cameras watch for BlackTrax’s uniquely pulsing LEDs and just tracks them, delivering up to 6 degrees of information about all the trackables. 
 
The calibration of the BlackTrax cameras and lights only needs to happen once, during a setup.
 
2) Can you describe BlackTrax’s collaboration with Bob Bonniol, d3, and others on the creative team?
 
MODE StudiosBob Bonniol was hired by Feld Entertainment to handle video content and system design for the show. BlackTrax has allowed the multimedia content on the show to be used in ways never seen before. By knowing where all the set pieces, props, and actors are, d3 simply needs to tell the designed content to project into the right position as they all move; this positional information is streamed directly to d3 from BlackTrax real-time. 
 
Working with both, media and lighting, the system gets used in different ways. Lighting only needs to see the LEDs from beacons in various scenes, unlike multimedia, which needs constant information streamed at it and chooses what to work with and when.
 
BlackTrax Connection Chart
 
3) How does BlackTrax interface with the d3 media servers, lighting, and projectors?
 
The BlackTrax system sends out, via its Real-Time Tracking (RTTrP) published protocol, streaming positional information to d3 all the time during the show, whereas for lighting, it is talking to the console and merge boxes VIA sACN and Artnet, sending only the information that it needs in any running chapter during the show. 
 
4) What is groundbreaking about the use of technology on this show for BlackTrax ? 
 
Marvel Universe Live is very much dependent on BlackTrax, as this is the first touring show to completely take all the follow spots out, in favor of BlackTrax. Without BlackTrax, there would be no lights following the actors and no projections on them and the moving sets/props.
 
5) What were the biggest challenges for BlackTrax with this project?
 
Everything to do with this show was a huge challenge for BlackTrax Version 1 as a lot of what was being asked for and needed had not been built and tested. Version 1.5 had to be built, tested, and delivered, very quickly to fit in with the production deliverable schedule. They first asked for 85 discreet trackables and 64 ports of moving lights to be addressable, running in an area bigger than BlackTrax had ever worked in, at 125 x 90 x 40ft high with a resolution of approx ¼ inch over entire area, because of the video projecting on scenery and props, plus to be able to manipulate all features on a per chapter basis— something that BlackTrax Version 1 only did globally. 
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Gil Densham and BlackTrax will be featured in a case study of Marvel Universe Live at LDI during the Projection Master Classes on November 19 & 20 in Las Vegas