3D Projection Mapping

Submission 22,100

Part of a series on Street Art. [View Related Entries]

About

3D Projection Mapping (also known as "Urban Projection Mapping") is a motion graphics technique that involves taking footage of a building's facade, editing the clip in post-production with special effects and projecting the edited footage directly onto its original source. Beginning in the late 2000s, the technology became widely adopted by advertisers as part of marketing campaigns.

Origin

3D projection is an emerging visualization technology that animates stationary objects and architectures by mapping three-dimensional points to a two-dimensional plane. With added sound effects and music, the result is a remarkable and immersive experience.

The 3D surface projection system was first introduced in 2007 with advents of holographic projection systems like Liquid Scenic^[2] by AV Concept. The technology was used during stage performance by Gorillaz and Madonna at the 2007 European MTV VMA Awards.

Spread

Throughout 2007 and 2008, a number of similar public art installations were curated by 3D projection artists^[3] like HC Gilie, Pablo Valbuena and Till Nowak as well as collectives AntiVJ and DotDotDot across Europe. The videos of on-site projection screenings were subsequently posted online via YouTube^[4] and Vimeo^[5], numbering in hundreds of uploads.

In 2010, several blogs dedicated to the topic of 3D projection were launched, such as Tumblr blogs Videomapping^[8] and 3D Projection Mapping^[9], as well as UrbanScreen.^[15] The same year, several articles covering the emerging tend were published by social media blogs and advertisers' blogs like Mashable^[10] and Social Times^[12]. As of January 2012, The Facebook fan page titled "I LOVE 3D PROJECTION MAPPING"^[11] has been liked by over 1,749 users on the social networking site.

Notable Examples

Usage in Advertising

Beginning in the summer of 2009, 3D projection mapping saw an explosive growth in demand, spawning a long list of impressive architectural screenings of 3D videos, many of them sponsored by corporate advertisers for international brands like Samsung, Ralph Lauren, BWM and Nokia among others.