The 3D room in the Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá was installed 180 meters underground, offering 16 daily functions. It has the capacity to accommodate 260 people per function, about 1,500 people per day.
By Richard Santa
Thanks to the devotion shown by the workers at the beginning of their working day in the salt mines, since 1930 the idea of building an underground chapel in Zipaquirá, a town near Bogotá, the Colombian capital, was thought of. This idea materialized in 1950 when the basilica was built on the second of the four floors of the mine, with a capacity to house 8,000 people.
Due to the structural failures of the first building, after a public-private partnership and a competition in which more than 40 proposals were received, in 1991 the construction of a new cathedral began, located 60 meters below the first.
Since 1995, when it was inaugurated, it became one of the main tourist attractions in the area and is considered the first of the seven wonders that Colombia has, along with the salt mines that are around it.
To continue providing innovative experiences to visitors, in 2012 the integrating company Signos Studio was commissioned to install an underground 3D room in the Salt Mines of Zipaquirá, with the purpose of exhibiting a stereoscopic animated film of a documentary nature that showed the history and characteristics of the saline dome.
Jose Antonio Arcos, representative of the company Signos Studio Ltda, explained that "the technology implemented in the 3D room was passive circular polarization, with dual projection system HD-2K and glass polarizing filters. The system provided 30,000 lumens on a 9x5-meter "3D silver screen". Audio and video are processed digitally using a 3D video player system (HD Stream generator) and a digital audio processor."
He added that the entire system is constantly managed and monitored through dedicated control software, which can be accessed remotely via the internet. The temperature of the projection rack is also monitored and controlled by a cooling system. All systems are powered and protected from an 11KVA On-Line UPS
Special conditions
The AV system for the salt mines was installed 180 meters below the earth's surface, in a sinkhole 10 meters wide by 16 meters high and 50 meters long, inside the Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá. The salt sinkhole is adapted as a beautiful Convention Center, where the salt rock forms the walls and ceiling of the site and the floors and chairs are made of squash wood.
"This Convention Center was set up as a 3D room to screen the animated short film Nucuma. The film is screened 365 days a year in 16 daily performances. The room has an area of 500 square meters and a capacity of 260 chairs that accommodate on average 1,500 tourists every day, "said José Antonio Arcos.
This integration was made due to the need to update and offer a high quality show, because many of the visitors came to the site with a very high reference of commercial movie theaters and began to demand the same quality of these digital theaters. "Our integration proposal was aimed at satisfying this need at a reasonable cost and with an innovative business scheme," said the representative of Signos Studio.
And it is that before the intervention of the 3D room, it has existed since 2009 a system that was functional, although it also presented notorious technological deficiencies. José Antonio Arcos recalls that the stereoscopy technique was analyph and the film was visualized with cardboard glasses with red and cyan filters. The system provided standard 720 x 480 resolution in 4:3 format and was composed of a 12,000 lumen projector, a white blackout curtain, a DVD drive for video playback and an audio power with three pairs of side speakers.
Latest technology installed
Currently the system not only integrates an audio, video and 3D immersion solution of the highest quality, they also managed to integrate the production of AV content into the project, because its success lies precisely in the synergy generated between technology, art and entertainment, which leads to a real immersion experience for tourists who visit the place.
"This integration was achieved thanks to the early participation of several professionals and companies in the AV sector, from the same planning and development phase of the project, to the final assembly and commissioning of the equipment. For example, projectors, polarizing filters and 3D glasses were purchased in the United States, the silvercreen screen and video player were purchased in South Korea and the audio solution and electric power support were supplied by Colombian companies," he said.
The digital animation film was conceptualized, developed and produced entirely in Colombia by Signos Studio, with motion capture technique (MoCap) and according to the DCI standard, where screenwriters, illustrators, animators, editors, musicians and a great production team intervened, who turned this audiovisual piece into the first animated short film made in the country with that technique and an important reference of this industry in the country.
For the projection of the film, 2K Sanyo LCD projectors of 15,000 lumens are used, with long-throw lenses and polarizing filters in APO glass. For the digital processing of audio and video, a 3D video player system from DigitalZone Co., Ltd, and a Nexia processor from Biamp Systems were implemented.
For the audio system they used QSC equipment that is composed of two HPR153 active front cockpits, eight side AD-S82H relay baffles, two KW181 front subwoofers and two RMX1850HD amplifiers. Finally, they used an Eaton EX-RT/11 On-Line UPS to power and protect the entire system.
Customer and user satisfaction
As part of the results, José Antonio Arcos indicated that "the AV integration that we achieved in this process has allowed the film that is exhibited in the 3D room, has positioned itself as an attraction of great added value for tourists who arrive at the place and an obligatory reference of the visit to the Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá, obviously resulting in the income of our strategic ally and also in benefits for an important group of people and companies that around this project have consolidated the development of this important tourism cluster".
But achieving these results was not easy. There were several difficulties that arose. The AV assembly demanded difficult challenges due to the depth at which the sinkhole is located and the dimensions and acoustics of the same, but above all due to the high levels of pollution, humidity and salinity present inside the mine.
"It should be noted that one of the objectives of the assembly was to intervene as little as possible the nature and aesthetics of the place, that is, to keep the saline rock in sight on walls and ceiling. Additionally, the challenge was to redesign the space to comply with the double functionality of the Convention Center and 3D Room, for which the giant screen had to be suspended nine meters high in a pivoting aluminum structure, a condition that allowed to enable the platform or stage of 70 square meters of the convention center . "
José Antonio Arcos concluded that "it is exciting to mention that since December 2012 more than one million visitors have enjoyed this 3D room and the vast majority express directly on the site, or on our website or through social networks, the satisfaction of having been in the place watching the film. There have been comments like "I had never seen 3D like I saw it here" and that flatters us a lot, but there is a very simple explanation of our success and so to speak, is that we managed to set up a 3D room underground with an animated content made on measures. "
