4 screens, cylindrical projection

vvvv beta general
1

Hello people,

I’m new to vvvv, checking out what it can do, and trying to figure out whether or not I can use it for a certain application.
A few things I’d like to know whether at all they are possible :

  • create 4 screens on two PC’s which seamlessly connect, with the end of screen 4 connecting to the beginning of screen 1. The screens should connect in the height. The content having a resolution of 1024x402 per screen.

  • import and play movies on these 4 screens, with generated content on top

  • texture a quarter of a cylinder for each of the 4 screens, with the content of the respective screen. I.e. : 1024x402 movie playing, 3d objects on top (with the same proportion showing on each screen) >>> combining that “output” as a texture on the quarter cylinder.

The project is a big cylinder on which 4 beamers project this content, each projector projecting 1 forth of the cylinder. The mapping onto a quarter cylinder before output is to compensate for the deformation when projecting on a rounded screen.

Any comments, hints, tips, clues to whether this is possible are very much appreciated.

Thanks,
Brecht.

2

the common trick we used for this type of application so far is to rebuild the real scene in virtual space. so you need to build a cylinder in 3d and then place your virtual cameras in a way like the beamers are looking onto the real cylinder. (with all the details of the beamer shift optic etc.)
after everything is tweaked very well you will just project the cylinder onto itself and you will have no distortion.
but in fact this is just the last step of your patch. you will use this virtual cylinder just for displaying the texture of everything you want to render onto the cylinder.
syncing video however is more tricky. but i think there should be a patch somewhere which does this very well.
if you are new to vvvv this might be too much work at once.
but yes: vvvv is in general capable of doing stuff like this.