In one of the first public special events to celebrate Virginia Tech's sesquicentennial, the
Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology partnered with the
Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets to tell the 150-year story of the university through the history of its cadets and the "voice" of one of its oldest buildings, Lane Hall. For three nights in September, bright and colorful imagery played across the 200-foot by 40-foot brick facade of the building that was originally known as Barracks No. 1 on Upper Quad, coinciding with the VTCC's Corps Reunion.
The idea to create something that could be projected onto the face of Lane Hall using a technique called
projection mapping was originally conceived of by George Hardebeck, a former ICAT employee. Over a year and a half, members of the project team worked with other groups across campus to make the idea a reality: The
Applied Research in Immersive Experiences and Simulations (ARIES) program in the University Libraries used LIDAR to scan Lane and create a digital 3D model of the building, from which ICAT graduate assistant Will Makowski 3D-printed a 1:120 scale physical model which could be used to test and set-up the software used to map projections onto the surface. The
Moss Arts Center along with Midway Production Services provided the two 31,000 lumen laser projectors and other audio and visual support to bring the event to life for crowds who gathered each night.
The content of the show itself was created mostly by a small team of students–Ethan Candelario who created the visuals, Michelle Shin who did storyboarding, and Charlie Duff who did sound design–led by David Franusich, a multimedia designer and creative technologist in ICAT.