So, in case you haven’t figured it out, I’m an electrical engineering. I work for a virtual reality hardware company, whose name I shall not mention. Most of what I do is making video processing circuits. I am on vacation this week and my girlfriend and I are doing the obligatory theme parks down in Orlando. I have been coming across all these simulator rides and they were pretty impressive. Being in the simulation industry, there is quite a bit of exposure to such technologies. They are pretty common and used by many professional aviation/simulation companies (not just theme parks and amusement rides).
The most amazing showcase of technology that I saw however had nothing to do with projection and simulation at all. It was a small little show called “Turtle Talk with Crush” at Epcot. At first, I thought it was just another kids show on a big screen. However, it turned out to be a whole lot more. I won’t ruin the attraction for anyone, but puppeteering in 21st century seems to be so much more fun than the Jim Henson dolls I saw when I was a kid. I’ve seen such technologies on TV talk shows, where facial recognition is used to convey expressions of actors on CGI characters, but to see it live was just utterly amazing. Goes to show that even an engineering in video processing field can be impressed at Disney World. It sure beats watching a bunch of mechanized presidents.
-J
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