RGB upgrade at amusement park

[zwiller]

Some of you may be aware that Sandusky, Ohio is home to Cedar Point.  Nice little amusement park with world class coasters and rides.  If you are looking for a lower cost summer vacation option I would highly recommend it.  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login  No, I don't work there...   

They have employed incan tech for probably 100 years and recently updated the "giant wheel" which is a night time favorite.  It's a ferris wheel.  Don't think I've ever seen without dozens of bulbs out.  A friend of a friend got some footage of what appears to me a test run since the park is not open yet...  The thing in front of it is a ride called Raptor.  Thought you might enjoy. 

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[urthegman]

Awesome!!!!! I want one!!!!!!!!!!    When is the coop? LOL

[MrChristmas2000]

That looks like something that Nutcracker might be able to accomplish.

It's really nothing more than a Full circle Marty fan built out of RGB strips and pixels.

NO NO NO no more lights, I just can't take any more. 

[lightingboy82]

I worked there for 2 summers (2003, 2004) in both rides and live entertainment. I agree tis a great park.  The company I now work for is behind some of their LED lighting.  We sold them their systems (fixtures and control) for windseeker, and their main games midway.  If you think the park is cool, check it out over the halloween season, what they call HalloWeekends.  They totally fog out part of the midway and have lasers, many incan fixtures, and of course zombies roaming in the smoke. 

[JerryPlak]

it's like looking at a mega tree from the top down     or from the sky.

[smeighan]

i saw effects there i will incorporate into the nutcracker.

looks nice

[Steve Gase]

Some of you may be aware that Sandusky, Ohio is home to Cedar Point.  Nice little amusement park with world class coasters and rides.  If you are looking for a lower cost summer vacation option I would highly recommend it.  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login  No, I don't work there...   

They have employed incan tech for probably 100 years and recently updated the "giant wheel" which is a night time favorite.  It's a ferris wheel.  Don't think I've ever seen without dozens of bulbs out.  A friend of a friend got some footage of what appears to me a test run since the park is not open yet...  The thing in front of it is a ride called Raptor.  Thought you might enjoy. 

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I worked there 2 summers as a bartender and manager of the bar.  Best time!!  (ok there have been good times in the 30 years since, but it was good nevertheless!!)

[Steve Gase]

i saw effects there i will incorporate into the nutcracker.

looks nice

I'd love to apply the majority of those effects on my 50-pixel coroflakes!!

btw, I'm working on a tool to make generating custom target models easy.

[chrisatpsu]

for a second there, i though Steve was burning in his smart string stuff   

[meman]

That is awesome, wish I could see it in person. If they got the wheel spinning fast enough they could do some really cool persistence of vision tricks too 

[MrChristmas2000]

That is awesome, wish I could see it in person. If they got the wheel spinning fast enough they could do some really cool persistence of vision tricks too 

Yeah I'd like to see what anybody would look like after the ride. 

[JonB256]

I worked there for 2 summers (2003, 2004) in both rides and live entertainment. I agree tis a great park.  The company I now work for is behind some of their LED lighting.  We sold them their systems (fixtures and control) for windseeker, and their main games midway. 

Did they use something like Madrix for their programming? I'm curious how much different the "commercial" installs are from where we are at now with SmartStrings and Nutcracker and Madrix.

[lightingboy82]

I do not know what they are using on the Giant Wheel, as we were not part of that project  , but most likely the RGB fixtures are some flavor of Color Kinetics, and once the programing is done, only a small replay unit is needed, not unlike DLA's ETD- maybe with a slightly higher channel output however.  In WindSeeker, we used a Color Kinetics iPlayer3 as the playback device. 

Looking at the video, I am pretty sure they have pixel-mapped the Wheel and programed it with a media server.  It very well may be playing back a video file that the server is converting to individual RGB nodes, as this is one of the faster ways to produce the designs - use video production software, create a "movie" and play it back on a device that can convert it. Once the file is converted to DMX or KiNet (Color Kinetics own protocol) its just a matter of storing the playback file and looping it.  CP may have just bought the media server so they can change the design at their leisure. I'd love to get inside that control room!

[Steve Gase]

In WindSeeker, we used a Color Kinetics iPlayer3 as the playback device. 

I looked up WindSeeker... NICE JOB lightingboy82 !!

Here is a link:  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Sean, you have more effects to implement -- these are also got-to-have. 

[zwiller]

I'd love to get inside that control room!

That could be arranged, seriously.  I know tons of people there and my Dad and good buds are on fire squad.  knock, knock, knock, "We need to inspect the control room..."   

Beat me to it Steve!  Great job on windseeker!  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

That ride actually got me into rgb.  Colors are vibrant and bright!  You don't see any lighting riding it, but then again you're being whirled around at 30mph 301 feet up...