d3 Helps Dream Laser Launch BMW 7 Series in Russia with Dynamic 3-D Mapping

When the new luxury BMW 7 Series launched in Russia recently, Dream Laser showcased the sleek vehicle with a dynamic 3-D mapping presentation driven by d3 Technologies' 4x2pro.

Nizhy Novgorod-based Dream Laser creates multimedia laser shows and 3-D mapping for a wide range of clients. The BMW 7 Series project was commissioned by TransTechService; it was staged in showrooms in three cities across Russia. In 2014, Dream Laser deployed a d3 4x2pro for a 3-D mapping presentation for the BMW X5 Sports Activity Vehicle.

The BMW 7 Series presentation began in darkness when tiny swirling points of light revealed an outline of the vehicle. CGI drapery was pulled back to uncover sleek, shiny surfaces mapped with flow lines, changing vehicle colors, speeding reflections and light -- all choreographed to a high-energy music track. When the house lights came up a presenter discussed the attributes of the new car.

"The main objective of the show was to focus the guests on the car's uniqueness, exclusivity, and luxury," says Dream Laser project manager Evgeniy Stepanov. "The audience was impressed!"

Dream Laser paired a Christie Roadster WU14K-M projector with a d3 4x2pro media server to map the vehicle with 3-D imagery.

"d3 is the best product for controlling virtually any multimedia equipment on the market today," says Dream Laser technical director Alexandr Istomin. "There is no more effective product for 3-D mapping, even though we used no more than 20% of the server capacity on the presentation. There's nothing that can compete with it."

According to Istomin, "One of the key advantages to d3 is its ease of use, which in turn affects the speed and reliability of the projector settings. The program interface is absolutely intuitive; the available tools allow you to make video with any elements without any restrictions."

Istomin finds d3 particularly valuable for previsualization. "The ability to upload a 3-D model of the object -- in this case, the BMW 7 Series vehicle -- then check the content directly on the 3-D model is unique," he says. "After that, the projector can locate the video correctly when it is placed on the real object. This feature is particularly useful at the time of content creation when we can verify content and experiment without the real model object. Then it's useful again when we work directly at the event. After mounting the projectors at the show, the d3 set up for the car took only 15 minutes."

With d3 previs Istomin could also "assess how the project looked from all sides and take photos for the client of how the 3-D mapping will look at the event."

He calls technical support the company receives from d3 "beyond praise. Every month there are updates, and if we find an error updates and corrections come the next day. But overall the system works perfectly."

Dream Laser remains convinced of d3's qualities, Istomin says. "We regularly visit trade shows and study competitive products. But no other modern media server can build a panoramic installation as easily, quickly or simply as d3."

At Dream Laser Ksusha Chekhovskaya was the art director and wrote the screenplay, Anton Kolodyazhnyy was design supervisor, Konstantin Shun motion designer, Maxim Khrychev sound designer and Andrey Danyaev, Boris Tsibisov and Alexandr Romanov the technical crew.