All of Barco

Warp & Blend

Barco Pulse electronics have warp and blending capabilities embedded within the projector software. You can control the warp and blend functions directly from the projectors’ user interface (UI), Prospector our web-interface (recommended) or via JSON-RPC command protocol to perform warping and blending through your own proprietary solutions. Geometry corrections performed in the projector ensure minimum system latency is added, as all image processing is done in one single step through Barco’s proprietary SSP™ technology.

What is Warp?

WARP™ is the most advanced geometry distortion technology using proprietary bi-cubic interpolation. It is specifically optimized to preserve fine detail in the image and suppress resampling artefacts. No matter how complex your warp is, it is done in one single step and does not add extra latency to the signal. This is a huge advantage for customers that need to meet minimum latency requirements such as in gaming. We are proud to say that this is unique to Barco.

What can we use it for?

When a projector is installed off-axis, in the corner of the room, high in the ceiling, inside the side wall, as this example shows. This will normally create image artefacts like a keystoned image overshooting the screen.
With Barco Residentials capabilities like shift and warp technology we can easily return the image back to a perfectly aligned image without showing any artefacts in the image.
With the knowledge Barco brings to the table, we could offer to help the integrator and the designer to install a projector where you normally would not think it was possible. As a result, you are not only getting a perfect image, but we can also make sure the technology is perfectly integrated in an architecturally pleasing way.

What is Blend

Edge blending is a technique used when multiple projectors are used to display portions of a larger single image. To create a seamless single image, adjacent projectors need to overlap edges slightly and, to compensate for the double brightness this creates in these regions, the projector needs to generate a blend curve to adjust its brightness for the pixels in this overlap region.

Warp & Blend used together

We did install a 3-projector blend in a garage in Beverly Hills, this installation needed both warp and blend technology used together. The image was a 22 meter (75 feet) wide. Three Balder Cinemascope units were used.

In installations like this, Barco Residential will offer their expertise and can support the install on site. With the built-in warp and blend technology together with external Barco processors or computers to handle the content, we can easily turn three projector images into one seamless curved image.

The calibration starts with alignment of the picture. The image will overshoot at first but with the built in 4-corner warp and bow correction technology, the projectors bend the image to follow the curvature of the screen.

The next step is to color match the three units to make sure they always show the same colors. We use our built-in color correction technology – RealColor for this. Every pixel is the same color and brightness for absolutely uniformity.

The last but most important step is to blend or more correctly edge blend the images into a single seamless image using our built in Blend & Mask Technology.

The result can be seen in the video.

A Presentation of the house can be seen here