VAI brings 21st-Century Gesture Technology to Las Vegas Jewelry Trade Show

Video Applications, Inc. (VAI), a WorldStage company, paired the jewelry company Chamilia with an innovative motion gesture tracking technology to showcase Chamilia's latest collection at the recent JCK Las Vegas. The show, held at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Convention Center, is the most comprehensive jewelry gathering in the country attracting more than 2,500 participants from 22 countries.

Minneapolis-based Chamilia partnered with Media Loft on the booth's unique video wall, controlled by presenters' touchless gestures. The video wall displayed Chamilia's extensive bead collection, which allows consumers to customize and personalize their jewelry.

"The objective was to showcase their beautiful products in a way that was larger than life," says Greg Friedmann, account supervisor at Media Loft. "JCK Las Vegas does not have a lot of companies using technology. Traditionally, exhibitors have jewelry behind display cases. So Chamilia's goal was to stand out from the rest of the crowd. We accomplished that in spades."

An additional objective was to offer an interactive component that helped Chamilia salespeople sell to existing and prospective customers. "Jewelry is a perfect application" for videowalls controlled by gestural technology, Friedmann notes. "Chamilia offers an extensive and beautiful collection of handcrafted beads, which are small and intricate. So it was important for customers to be able to see them up close and enlarged on the video wall through very detailed photography. It was a really cool experience."

Media Loft approached VAI last December to inquire if the company could help execute Chamilia's vision. "We worked with them all year gathering imagery, programming the wall movements and testing and reviewing the results," says Michael May, senior account executive at VAI's Nashville office. "It was a unique use of a newer technology and it worked brilliantly."

VAI created a videowall comprised of 12 NEC narrow-bezel LCD monitors in a 4 x 3 configuration. Six coolux Pandoras Box dual-output media processors utilizing an infrared motion sensing system enabled the video wall to "read" presenters' gestures. They changed imagery by scrolling and advancing the content displayed in both horizontal and vertical directions.

"Every monitor displayed a different jewelry image, says May. "By moving their hands from side to side or up and down, the presenters were able to move the images from one monitor to the next. Then, by using another hand gesture, they could choose one of the images and access a sequence -- which we programmed in advance --that brought up a full-screen page pertaining to the specific jewelry piece they selected."

"VAI was just great," Greg Friedmann reports. "They worked with us in a very supportive and helpful fashion."

Dain Rodwell was Media Loft's producer for Chamilia and Eric S Olson was the creative director; Jeff Gay was the Minneapolis-based technical director and producer. Jo-Anne Ebensteiner, creative director at Utility Brand, provided art direction for the images used on the media wall. Lars Pedersen was director of emerging technologies for VAI partner Scharff Weisberg, a WorldStage company.