Panasonic - Art Center College of Design

The Art Center College of Design gives participants a professional design experience. The 1:1 scale large-screen videos that are projected by the PT-FW100NT enable students to gain a deeper understanding of the subjects.

Institutions that teach design are always looking for ways to recreate the real-world working environment that students will encounter when they enter the workforce. When designing large-scale products, such as an automobile, the use of projection in a design lab greatly simulates the actual design experience by showing the subject's actual size, and in its natural environment. This is something that cannot be accomplished with a computer screen.

Life-size videos increase the quality of the curriculum.
Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, offers a forward-thinking curriculum that prepares its students for a wide array of careers, including fine arts, electronic media and product design. When the school partnered with Panasonic projectors, it quickly realized the opportunities for students were endless. Transportation design students at the Art Center use a Panasonic PT-FW100NT digital projector to bring their creations to life-size perspective. Professor Stewart Reed explains, "Seeing this thing nearly full size, projected here; certain things, relationships, feel different to you. If you take something from your expectation of what it will be as a full-size property to actual full size, either in projection techniques or in full models, you always find there are differences in proportion and scale."

The PT-FW100NT, with its versatile capabilities, is installed so that students are able to use it at any time.
Students' designs start out as scaled-down renderings on laptop computers. "When you're looking at it small, you see the whole thing. But that's not how you build a car. A car is big - the car's bigger than you. So it's really important that you can walk up to it," says Art Center student Gary Shiu. Students can do exactly that because the versatile Panasonic projector easily connects to any video source, including their laptops.

Reed says, "You get a feeling now that the relative mass of the front to the mass of the rear is what you were after. By having a dedicated projector in the studio and a large screen that the students can use any time, its really transformed our ability to quickly realize full-scale design."

A full 3,000 lumens of brightness and Daylight View Technology help to make the videos consistently easy to see.
Further describing this phenomenon, Shiu says, "You can walk up to it and experience it, like if you're walking toward a car in a parking lot. You know what I mean? You can't do that - you can't walk up to a computer - it's not the same. That's really the power of the projector." Students and professors alike find that the projectors blow them away with their power and clarity performance. Reed says, "In an environment that we're in, in the studio, where there's a fair amount of ambient light, it still manages to give us the result, even with some light interference around it."

Working with Hoffman Video, Art Center College of Design decided to install Panasonic PT-FW100NT projectors throughout its hillside campus. With 3,000 ANSI lumens and Daylight View Technology, the FW100NT is an advanced projector that maintains high brightness. What's more, the Horizontal/Vertical Lens Shift and the 2X zoom also make the unit easy to use when mounted to a ceiling or on a shelf. The seamless connection of a video source and the 1280 x 800 XGA display are more than adequate to emulate full scale of design projects.

The PT-FW100NT also features excellent cost performance. With its extended range of colors, the students' ideas are reproduced with a high degree of accuracy.
Art Center's management was impressed by the Panasonic projectors' ability to accurately recreate an almost infinite range of colors. The AV staff appreciates the projectors' auto-rolling filters, and their extended lamp life. Martinez explains, "Some of the other projectors will typically last anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 hours. The FW100NT has a new lamp technology that allows the lamp life to be extended an additional 1,000 hours. You can see it's definitely cost effective." Panasonic projectors also help students prepare for real-world careers by exposing them to the latest methods used by professional design companies.

Overall, Art Center College of Design's deployment of Panasonic digital projectors has resulted in significant bottom-line benefits. Art Center student Gary Shiu describes it best, "Like the next-best thing to an actual, full-scale model. It's a pretty amazing feeling."