Naila Nadeem delves into how LED displays propelled Wonderla Bangalore’s Mission Interstellar into a new realm of visual storytelling.
Have you ever come off a ride and needed a second to remind yourself it wasn’t real? That is exactly what Wonderla Bangalore hoped to achieve with its latest attraction, Mission Interstellar.
Mission Interstellar is India’s first curved LED-based immersive ride. And with LED at the centre of the stage, every visual detail relies heavily on the screen’s power to convince viewers that they are part of a galactic mission.
For this installation, Cavitak was appointed as the distributor-cum-integrator to handle the LED installation. Sangram Kumar Swain, head of products from Cavitak details how the company was brought on board: “We’ve been in this industry for over 40 years. As an organisation, we don’t just cover AV but we also handle almost all aspects of ELV, including CCTV, surveillance, and other electronics. In this case, Wonderla reached out to us directly as this project also included elements like CCTV and surveillance, which we offer.”
The creative and technical brief was straightforward yet ambitious, Sangram shares: “The focus of this project was on creating a sense of realism and excitement through immersive visuals and interactivity while ensuring that guests of all ages could enjoy, be amazed and thrilled by the experience in the theatre. They wanted a display that was capable of bringing and enhancing the sense of realism that this project required.”
After several consultations, the Cavitak team decided to partner with AET to deliver this installation. Sangram explains how this collaboration came around: “We partnered up with AET around a year and a half ago from our end as a national distributor. This was actually one of the first projects we discussed together, and it was part of the reason why we partnered in the first place. We reached out to AET for the opportunity to serve as the OEM and consultant for this project.”
He continues: “AET, along with its group of companies, supply a large portion of the world’s active LED products. Since its head factory is capable of manufacturing everything from SMD to microLED, including QCOB, COB and MIP technology, we believed that AET would have the best capabilities to offer customisation for LED, which is what this project required.”
Custom-designed LED
Designing the curved LED screen for Mission Interstellar came with a unique set of considerations. The biggest question that Wonderla had was how to achieve a seamless curve using flat LED cabinets without creating visible angles that would potentially distort the content.
This kicked off several rounds of discussion and ultimately led to a customised approach. Sangram explains: “The moment you use flat cabinets to make a curve, there will be at least some degree of angle created. Our engineers designed around 200 unique, custom cabinet shapes using AutoCAD. We experimented with different angles and different sizes. We then sent these designs to the factory, and once everything was confirmed and approved by Wonderla, we proceeded with fabrication and installation.”
Cavitak landed on AET’s QCOB P2.5 LED display as the main form of visual display for this theatre. Spanning 22m in width and 15m in height, the curved display creates an enveloping visual field, wrapping viewers into the scene with a radius of 22.8m.
The screen is composed of 288 custom LED cabinets arranged in a 26m by 16m format. Each cabinet, measuring 1270mm by 1,141mm, houses 7,782 SMD QCOB modules and has a pixel pitch of 2.5mm to hit the realism brief on the nail.
Sandeep Mali, technical head at AET, elaborates on the specificities of the 377 sq m visual setup: “The QCOB panels deliver ultra-high contrast ratios, broader colour gamuts, and wider viewing angles which ensure that every audience member, regardless of where they’re seated, is fully immersed in the narrative. The panels are also fully sealed against moisture, support seamless splicing, and provide efficient heat dissipation. These are factors that are important when designing a visual setup for a high-traffic amusement park setting.”
A project of this scale demanded an equally robust supporting framework. The Cavitak and AET teams deployed a custom-designed MS steel structure to support the curvature and considerable weight of the display system. Sandeep shares: “The structural integrity of the installation was as vital as the visual quality, and we had to make sure the installation was both safe and seamless no matter what.”
For content playback and media control, AET’s 4K controller ecosystem was installed. The system included 12 AET 4K controllers connected to four high-performance servers to ensure that content could be delivered smoothly across the expansive screen without lags. Sandeep adds: “Each controller featured an Intel i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, Nvidia professional-grade graphics, and 1TB of solid-state storage. All of these features are important in allowing the system to handle intensive graphics loads without a hitch.”
In terms of audio, QSC products were fitted into the space by a separate service provider as requested by Wonderla Bangalore.
Big visions call for precision
From mounting the cabinets and integrating the LED to completing internal cabling and finishing the surface, the entire process of setting the screen up required meticulous planning and cross-team collaboration.
Sangram notes certain challenges faced during the project: “We worked on this project for a really long time. The installation itself took 45 days to complete. However, as you know, projects start much longer before the actual installation. We needed precise design drawings to be approved down to the micro millimetre, and there were a lot of discussions with the fabricators who would be in charge of customising the LED cabinets. Multiple die cast cabinets also had to be manufactured and there was a lot of back and forth between the factory and the ground team.”
He continues: “Whenever a custom approach is involved, there will always be a mismatch between the fabrication and the actual installation. When we were working on the installation, the site was still raw and there wasn’t proper power availability as the park was situated quite far away from the city centre, which caused some delays.”
Another key challenge was synchronising the display with the ride, which was of utmost importance to the client given the immersive nature of the themed ride. Sangram says: “The content, the display, the server; everything had to align perfectly. We had to figure out how the content would play from the server and be linked to the ride motions, so that the person experiencing it would feel a natural connection between their movement and what was happening on screen. It took us 15 days to get this right. This was handled by Sandeep along with his team. They fine-tuned it down to each second.”
Despite the challenges that came with a project of this scale, the Cavitak and AET team successfully delivered an installation that paves the way for the entertainment and attractions scene in India. Addarsh Barathi, marketing head at Wonderla Bangalore, concludes: “The ride has been a phenomenal hit with our customers. We are extremely happy with the response that we have gotten so far. Being an Indian player, we are proud to have been able to bring world-class technology to India’s entertainment scene.”