17,280 LEDs forming a 16’ x 16’ arch

DESCRIPTION

Play Portal was an LED sculpture created by Christopher Schardt, Peter Tjeerdsma, and Kevin Byall.  It had 72 5m strips, each with 240 LEDs - a total of 17,280. It was custom-created for a Google Play event in San Francisco in 2014.

The strips across the top are parallel. The strips fan out as they come down to the ground. This made for some very interesting effects with Strips Scenes. The mapping was a very simple rectangular mapping - 720 columns by 24 rows.

Though Play Portal doesn’t exist anymore, creating something like it would be straightforward. All the logic for creating its patterns is in the software, which has only improved since 2014.
   
The computer program that controls the piece is LED Lab an iPad app that allows any image or video file to be used in creating animations. (City/country-specific imagery can be integrated into the performance.) This app is available on the Apple iTunes Store.