June 21, 2011

By James Wood

The rectangle dominates signage. Billboards, menus, movie posters and nearly every sign is locked into the rectangle. Digital signage has been following the same path, largely due to the form factor of display panels (surprise, surprise, also rectangles). But the growing trend seen in digital signage is different shapes. It might be an arch, a wave, a tower or a spiral, but the shapes are coming out to play.

It’s not the individual panels that are changing in size, but the configuration of the panels that provides different shapes. Two things are necessary to allow the variety of configurations to work at all: a versatile mounting system and a powerful video processor.

Lo and behold, the Clarity Matrix Video Wall has both. Not only does the EasyAxis mounting system allow the individual screens in the video wall to be individually adjusted on six different axes, but it also lets you configure the matrix with differently oriented panels and curved arrays. So the banner display can wrap around a building or follow the curve of interesting architectural pieces.

Planar’s own Indisys image processing system can break up an image across any configuration of panels imaginable. So the text can spiral along the path of the curving panels or the image can appear to be seen through the shape of the video wall. And each of the panels, like the Clarity Matrix MX 55, a 55 inch high-def display, communicates to the video processor where it is in the array, automatically.

The rectangle is no longer the only shape possible for signage. But some things have to be seen to be believed.