Unique video wall for the new headquarters of Bell Helicopter in Fort Worth, Texas, USA: In the new headquarters of BELL Helicopter a convex video wall consisting of 48 omniSHAPES greets visitors in the main lobby. With a resolution of 8192 × 4608 pixels on an 8.4 m² big screen and a high brightness in combination with contrast enhancing screens the omniSHAPES offer best visualization in the well-lit entrance area.

The new headquarters building of BELL Helicopter Textron Inc. in Fort Worth was a redevelopment of the existing corporate campus. The planning of the BELL Employee Center represented the first major step in the rejuvenation of the heart of the BELL Helicopter Company. The Employee Center and new headquarters building were both designed by Dallas based architecture & planning firm Merriman Associates. These two buildings serve a key role in the development of the Bell identity. Since April 2014 around 5,000 employees work on the campus. The new headquarters entrance area not just serves for the welcome of visitors but also for presentations and events. Therefore, the installed AV technology had to meet high demands.

Only omniSHAPES could fit in the design of the lobby area:

The design of the building was already completed and the construction had begun, when Bell decided to install a convex video wall in their main lobby. Thus, a video wall solution had to be found that could fit in the outer wall of an already planned elliptical architectural element in the lobby. In the inside of the element a waiting area with several seats are located. Therefore, the video wall modules had to fit into exact design specifications. At the end of the MARKET research for such products, only eyevis omniSHAPES exclusively distributed in North America through Ayon Visual Solutions (AVS) in Tucker, Georgia, could solve the issue. “Datacom selected the eyevis omniSHAPE because it was the only video wall cube system that can be configured into convex shapes and fit the elliptical architectural element appropriately”, stated Richard Bumpass consultant at Datacom Design Group, LLC who was responsible for the design of the AV systems. Datacom Design Group further designed other low voltage systems in the building including IT communications and security systems.

German manufacturer eyevis attached great importance the sophisticated housing design of their omniSHAPES which enables the installation of convex-curved video walls with an angle of up to 12° without further efforts. This way, the integrator AVI-SPL could fit the omniSHAPES video wall exactly in the architectural element. Additionally, the omniSHAPES offer a front support for installation and service. As there is no additional space for rear maintenance required behind the video wall, the architects from Merriman Associates did not have to include access hatches or removable panels in the design of the elliptical waiting room.

Future proof thanks to 4K environment

Brilliant images and videos thanks to high resolution up to 4K: The omniSHAPES video wall is used in the lobby primarily to display MARKETING information and the internally produced Rotorvision content. Additionally there are local signal inputs so that the non-secure lobby space can be used for presentations. The local inputs contain multiple source signals that run over fiber optic cables to the netPIX graphics controller from eyevis. These include a Blu-ray player, TV tuner, and a content manager that enables RSS feeds and scheduling of content played. In order to achieve a future-proof system the whole signal transmission had to be 4K ready, which could be realized through a state-of-the-art netPIX graphics controller from eyevis with professional input and output cards. “We are very proud to be involved in such a magnificent project by a world-leading brand as Bell Helicopter. With our unique omniSHAPES solution we were able to fulfil the demanding requirements of the project. The new video wall will surely bring their company message across to visitors and employees passing the video wall in their splendid new headquarter building,” summarizes Rainer Link, Director International Sales at eyevis.