Creative Technology creates broadcast spectacular with track projection at 2019 IAAF World Athletics Championships By Heather McLean, Editor
Tuesday, November 5, 2019 - 15:28
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At the IAAF World Athletics Championships 2019 in Doha, Creative Technology took virtual reality (VR) and projection mapping to new levels in what is considered to be a world-first for sports broadcasting.
Creative Technology built a VR-based pre-visualisation tool to enable the IAAF and broadcasters to plan out the intricacies of the games, and laser projectors were used to show custom content across the entire running track for the finals of the athletics. The latter covered the lanes with athletes' names as the lights in the stadium were switched off to showcase the spectacular effect.
For 2019 a multitude of technical innovations were introduced to the event including light shows, new camera angles and increased engagement with athletes, which brought a new dynamic to the event.
Florian Weber, IAAF event presentation manager, was responsible for the groundbreaking athletics presentation concept and challenged Creative Technology to deliver a projected track athlete introduction which covered the entire running track, as well as entertainment lighting, LED athlete entrances for both track and field positions, and an LED medal ceremony podium on top of the usual event presentation control and stadium relay screens.
Virtual reality comes into play
In order to successfully deliver the track projection, it was essential that the stadium was dark, which required the sports lighting to be switched off. However, switching stadium lights off during a televised stadium sports show is not something broadcasters are comfortable with, so Weber commissioned Creative Technology to deliver a VR model of the Khalifa Stadium featuring athletics apparatus, production overlay and the proposed LED screens and track projection.
This was primarily to present the lights-out track projection concept to the broadcasters to ensure they understood and bought in to the concept, but it quickly became a key pre-production tool for the IAAF as the project took shape allowing for pre-visualisation of the entire stadium, which was hugely beneficial for stakeholders and sponsors.
Creative Technology's banks of projectors aimed at the track in Doha
Steve Purkess, head of sport at Creative Technology, told SVG Europe: We were trying to think of a way to illustrate what we were trying to do [on the track projection] to get the different broadcasters covering the event on board. We've used this type of technology on a very different scale before, but VR is now finding its place in different areas of industry; we're just bringing it into our industry, and we did it in a large scale way.
Generally when you do a show like this, you do visuals, and so does everyone else, so you end up with lots of visuals created on all different platforms. This [VR model] is all about having the same model throughout the entire process. People were sending us models and we were adding them to the big [VR] model. It was much easier to sort problems out, like obstructing views, which is a big issue in broadcasting [live sports in stadiums], continued Purkess.
This bespoke pre-visualisation service also assisted broadcasters in other ways as they did not need to send teams of people to Qatar to check details such as camera angles and lenses prior to the games, drastically reducing the travel element of pre-event preparations, saving money, time and Co2 emissions.
Purkess explained: Another thing we were doing [with the VR model] was creating camera positions for broadcasters. We built up a stock of camera lens models [into the VR programme] to show broadcasters what framing they could achieve with different lenses [from their positions within the stadium], so they could test in a virtual space rather than take a selection of lenses to the stadium itself.
The VR model and the easy visualisation of design changes allowed Creative Technology to work closely with the IAAF sports presentation team to plan and design the in-stadia overlay, integrating all sports, functional, presentation and broadcast elements of the event. This could then be viewed by stakeholders to assess the project and pre-visualise the whole event from all locations within the stadium and from a live broadcast perspective.
Projection mapping challenges
Images of athletes themselves were also projected onto the Khalifa Stadium floor in Qatar
Arguably the most impressive and talked about innovation at the Championships this year was the track projection. Creative Technology used over one hundred 21K and 31k laser projectors to project custom content across the entire running track, bringing it to life during the finals.
The creative team, headed up by Weber, consisted of Rob Currie and Nick Clark-Lowes who worked closely with the Creative Technology team, led by project manager Matt Hartfree, to develop the content and technical solution to deliver the vision. This was no mean feat, considering the size and varying textures of the projected surface, not to mention the resolution of the content and the last-minute line up information for the track finals.
Over a year in planning, one of the initial tests required the team to hire the use of a local athletics track close to Creative Technology's headquarters in London Gatwick to undergo a feasibility study, measuring the required light levels for good image visibility, and monitoring the colour of the projected image on the track surface alongside other LED display devices. The development then continued with projection tests onto samples of the actual Mondo track surface installed at the Khalifa stadium in order to look more closely at the colour qualities of the surface.
The projector placement
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Creative Technology creates broadcast spectacular with track projection at 2019 IAAF World Athletics Championships By Heather McLean, Editor 
