‘Mount Rushmore of the digital age’ will use 10,000 LED rods to re-create visitor faces at Winter Olympics

London-based designer Asif Khan, the brilliant mind behind the 2012 London Olympics Coca-Cola Beatbox pavilion, was recently tasked with developing another jaw-dropping installation, this time for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

To say he didn’t disappoint would be an understatement.

Khan will create “MegaFaces,” also dubbed the “Mount Rushmore of the digital age,” a project that will see him build a 25-foot tall 3D display that employs 10,000 LED rods for the purpose of projecting attendees’ faces on the wall itself. 

Here’s how it works: the attendee will step inside a photo booth to have five photographs taken of his / her face from various angles. After a few moments, the system will assemble the data in to a 3D image and send it over to a system installed on a pavillion’s wall, where the LED rods underlie a fabric membrane. When prompted, the appropriate rods will then extend up to two meters outward to create the shape of the attendee’s face.

To disguise junctions between pixels, the rods themselves will be laid out on a triagonal grid.

Worth noting — since each rod has an LED at its tip, it will be possible for the system to calculate the exact position of every pixel.

“In the area of a three-dimensional modelling of organic forms a trigonal structure is more suitable, because it makes three-dimensional forms appear natural and flowing even with only a small amount of pixels,” said Valentin Spiess, chief engineer on the project.

While each new three-dimensional model takes about 60 seconds to process, a long queue is expected for this service. Visitors who have their photograph taken will be told when their face should pop out of the wall, and they’ll be emailed a 20-second video of the occurrence.

The façade will display up to three faces at a time, each one measuring about eight meters high.

Watch an early test of the technology below:

MegaFaces will be installed on the façade of a temporary pavilion belonging to Russian telecom operator MegaFon. It will remain there for the duration of the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. 

Story via dezeen.com