Olympics 2012 opening ceremony in London was a treat indeed. With so many popular characters and ideas put into it, from Harry Potter to Mr. Beans, it was something everyone could more or less relate to. Besides, the magnificent effects which studded the entire stadium as well as the live transmission of the event were also amazing!

What is rather surprising is that the organizers of London Olympics 2012 handed over an LED paddle to everyone among the 70,500 people in the audience. This virtually made the entire audience a part of creating 360-degree animations in the stadium.

The device was offered together with each seat. It comprised of nine LED full-color pixels and was, in turn, wired into a control rack. As soon as the opening ceremony started, these pixels would start a remarkable display of lights, based on the programming of the organizers. This resulted in awesome 3D animations which ran among the entire audience.

According to the creative director at Crystal, Will Case, “The audience literally became part of the action.” Crystal was the company behind the production of opening ceremony animations. The tablet systems used during the show were built by Tait technologies.

These ‘pixel’ tablets were designed to be such that the video which was displayed through them could be visible at an angle of 180 degrees both horizontally and vertically. And, this was probably the largest ever show in which so many people collaborated to create 3D animation effects.

Courtesy: ZDnet