More than 2 million visitors are expected to experience the Electroland-created Target Breezeway in New York City. An experimental space for environmental interactivity, the Breezeway is powered by Tyzx 3D vision technology, sponsored by Target, and located on the 69th floor observation deck of Rockefeller Center.
Electroland, a group that creates multi-disciplinary urban projects and scenarios, worked with Tyzx 3D vision technology to attain sensing and visitor tracking in the Breezeway. The TYZX 3D vision system is capable of individually tracking up to 30 visitors with a high level of accuracy; in fact, this level of individual tracking is unprecedented in public interactivity, and allows for great precision in translating visitor motions into an entertaining interactive experience.
"Systems that ‘see’ can be used in interactive art pieces such as this Electroland environment, and also in real-world applications in the automotive, consumer electronics, robotics, and security markets," says Ron Buck, CEO of Tyzx. "The time is right for adoption of '3D computer vision' in a variety of commercial markets."
Visitors to the Breezeway participate in an immersive videogame-like environment where human motion is translated into patterns of sound and light. The walls and ceiling are lined with an electronic "intelligent skin" composed of more than 24,000 LED lights behind translucent white glass, which is capable of creating intense RGB light effects. Ambient sounds accompany the different light patterns and reinforce the interactive relationship.
Each visitor is assigned a "personality” by the tracking software and is in turn followed by patterns of colored lights. For instance, a green light might persistently follow one visitor, and a red light might follow another person. Electroland software, integrated with Tyzx technology, is able to modulate patterns depending on numbers of visitors, time of day, and levels of activity in the room.
The Electroland Target Breezeway project opened to the public in late 2005 and is expected to continue for another two years.