Case Studies

Amusement Park Exceeds Projections

Movieland Park chooses Matrox DualHead2Go to drive multiple monitors and projectors for highly immersive attractions

Canevaworld Resort selects Matrox DualHead2Go as the multi-display solution for three new attractions, including the Terminator 5D game.
Canevaworld Resort selects Matrox DualHead2Go as the multi-display solution for three new attractions, including the Terminator 5D game.

Abstract

Movieland Park (Canevaworld Resort), a major Italian amusement park located in Lazise, Italy, selected the Matrox DualHead2Go as the multi-display solution for three new attractions: a four-projector Police Academy simulation, a Terminator 5D video game, and a dual-touch screen panel for the Night Festival discothèque. With its external design, DualHead2Go avoids the heating, power consumption, and system instability issues experienced with previously tested hardware solutions, while its unique Graphics eXpansion Module (GXM) technology leverages the desktop’s existing graphics card to deliver multimedia content across multiple screens in highly immersive environments.

The Challenge

With three upcoming attractions for their ever-expanding entertainment center, Movieland Park looked to evaluate a multi-display solution capable of running 3D graphics across multiple displays and projectors. According to Claudio Castagnetti, Art-Department & ICT team Leader, “One of the main challenges was finding an easy-to-implement multi-display solution with high reliability standards, since our applications have to run several hours a day in stressful environments.”
 
Movieland Park initially considered a third-party high-performance graphics card for the installations, but the card produced inconsistent alignment results when connected to multiple projectors. The IT staff then attempted to use two graphics cards within the same system, but they quickly ran into system heating, instability, and power consumption concerns.
 

The Solution

Several Movieland Park IT staff members had positive experiences using Matrox GXMs for enterprise workstation upgrades and recommended the Matrox DualHead2Go Analog Edition. The DualHead2Go’s external design, dual-screen connectivity options, and ability to harness the system’s GPU to deliver uncompressed graphics and video make it the perfect match for their requirements.
The Police Academy simulator connects two DualHead2Go units to a single system to run four projectors.
The Police Academy simulator connects two DualHead2Go units to a single system to run four projectors.
 
Police Academy Simulator
The Police Academy attraction holds ten simulators with four seats each. The first five simulators face a large projection area that uses a multi-GXM configuration on an HP workstation to connect two DualHead2Go units to four projectors. One DualHead2Go is responsible for displaying the video content onto two large screens while the other DualHead2Go delivers instructions on two smaller screens. Using VGA splitters, Movieland Park duplicates the main projection content onto a second four-projector platform facing the remaining five simulators.
Terminator 5D Game
In an interesting virtual 5D video game that supports up to 50 participants at a time, Movieland Park uses DualHead2Go with two overlapped projectors to produce 3D Terminator 2 scenes in real time. With laser guns, participants shoot enemy targets on the screen, while a workstation with a programmable logic controller manages the real-time synchronization between the 3D visuals and 5.1 Audio effects, four mechanical robots, smoke, lights, controlled flames and explosions, and other mechanical effects.
The Night Festival discothèque allows participants to manage playlists through two DualHead2Go-powered touch screens.
The Night Festival discothèque allows participants to manage playlists through two DualHead2Go-powered touch screens.
Night Festival Discothèque
The Night Festival discothèque uses the DualHead2Go to drive a dual-touch screen console so guests can control the venue’s music, light, and smoke effects. Each console also comes with an integrated web camera, so guests can display their picture onto the discothèque’s roof, courtesy of a projector connected to the system’s second video output.
 

The Result

The DualHead2Go provided Movieland Park with a solution that no other hardware could offer: optimal multi-display graphics performance without system compromise. With larger, digitally-enhanced environments, DualHead2Go has allowed Movieland Park to build what they consider some of the resort’s biggest draws, while creating a template on which to build even more crowd-pleasing attractions.
“With DualHead2Go, we were fortunate to find an inexpensive, easy-to-install solution that solved our various multi-projector and multi-monitor challenges,” says Castagnetti. “This solution has allowed us to standardize on our multi-display technology for a wide variety of applications, making it considerably easier for both installation and maintenance purposes.”
 
Movieland Park selects Matrox DualHead2Go to drive three new attractions, including the Police Academy simulator.
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DualHead2Go Digital MEDualHead2Go Digital SE