"Polonceau Railway Carriage" Virtual Cutaway on Behance

"Polonceau Railway Carriage" Virtual Cutaway

•

Polonceau Railway Carriage Virtual Cutaway

Virtual Cutaway “Polonso" Digital concept

"Virtual Cutaway Polonso" is an installation for railway museum with video wall moving along rare historical coach and showing its internal structure. USSR Foreign Secretary used passenger car in 1950’s. The story of the coach was recreated by one shot filming with custom high accuracy motion control technology. Installation was developed and built from scratch including mechanical, electrical design and its original video content.

Virtual Cutaway “Polonso" Making-Of

Video wall screen height is 4.2m; travel distance is about 22m. 1mm - accuracy is ensured for the whole travel path.

General view of installation

Control system is based on Beckhoff embedded industrial computer running TwinCAT 3. AX5000 digital servo drive drives utilise EtherCAT as a high-performance communication system, providing 2ms cycle time for positioning task. Safety systems includes two SICK Safety laser scanners mounted on both sides of moving video wall. Protection area is defined and programmed to detect a human or an obstacle behind safety fence. Two safety circuits with OSSD signals monitored by Beckhoff Safety PLC running safety program independently from Main software PLC. If the emergency situation is detected "STOP" command issued to the drive via EtherCAT first and via TwinSAFE drive option card afterwards.

Control cabinet

Commissioning moments

Project main challenge was content creation with chromakey technique for compositing filmed action and CG. For proper realism and parallax effect we needed moving camera with precise repeatability for 22m travel path. It was impossible to rent such system for studio floor filming. We came to the idea of using our first installation ‘’Diesel Locomotive Virtual Cutaway” which was built a year before for the same museum. We designed and built historically accurate decorations and placed it behind first installation. Camera was mounted on moving video wall. Special camera movement program were created according filming script. After filming camera movement data dump was uploaded from control system and imported to video editing software. Installation assembly and commissioning was planned 2 month later after filming. When the installation and content was ready no further adjustment, movement program correction or content re-rendering needed. Thanks to digital motion control system and unique project pipeline.

Filming proccess

For on-site filming special sub-program with user interface (GUI) was created. Quick filming scene selection was possible inside GUI created in TwinCAT 3.