Europe’s Largest Digital Aquarium Brought to Life by PROJEKTIL and Panasonic

Panasonic 3-Chip DLP™ projectors deliver crisp visuals, transforming a historic building into an immersive underwater world.

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Client: PROJEKTIL’s Pixel Zoo Ocean

Location: Temple des Pâquis, Geneva

Product(s) supplied: PT-RQ18K

Challenge

Bring PROJEKTIL’s Pixel Zoo Ocean unique immersive experience to life in Geneva’s Temple des Pâquis, whilst giving a new lease of life to an under-utilised church.

Solution

Panasonic’s 3-Chip DLP™ projectors were chosen to transform the building into Europe’s largest digital aquarium, providing an immersive and interactive experience for visitors of all ages.

"Panasonic projectors have become an essential part of our technology toolkit. Panasonic’s easy-to-use, reliable, and high-quality projectors can be relied on time after time, enabling us to focus our attention on developing new experiences without having to worry about the tools behind the scenes."

Photo/Video Credits: Jonathan Imhof

Creating Europe’s Largest Digital Aquarium

Pixel Zoo Ocean is an immersive digital art experience that transports visitors into the ocean depths. Running from October 2024, and billed as Europe’s largest digital aquarium, the 40-minute show takes the audience through a captivating underwater world where they can experience different ocean zones and view a diverse range of marine creatures.

Managing every aspect of the installation, and given its longstanding relationship with Panasonic, PROJEKTIL turned to its range of 3-Chip DLP™ projectors to transform the historical Temple des Pâquis into an immersive and interactive experience.

"At PROJEKTIL we are passionate about blending traditional art with cutting-edge technology that transports the audience immersive worlds. To achieve this, we need projectors that just work and can withstand being used day and night to deliver breathtaking experiences, without glitches or failures. Panasonic fits this description perfectly."

PROJEKTIL installed a combination of Panasonic projectors and lenses to create its immersive experience within the church. This included 7 Panasonic PT-RQ18K 3-Chip DLP™ projectors delivering 4K+ images, and reliable, long-term operation.

The world’s smallest and lightest 16,000lm projector, the PT-RQ18K’s unique pixel-quadrupling technology, and colour accuracy delivers stunningly bright and smooth 4K+ visuals. Its Dynamic Contrast technology provides contrasts of 25,000:1 – perfect for immersive experiences where high resolutions and rich colours are crucial.

With the Temple des Pâquis being such a small space – less than half the size of the next smallest building that PROJEKTIL has used for other immersive experiences – PROJEKTIL primarily used Panasonic’s ET-D3LEW50 short-throw lenses. These provide superior installation flexibility in small spaces, without compromising visuals.

Pixel Zoo Ocean also features a unique interactive experience. Once the show has concluded, children can upload a picture of their favourite sea creatures, via a QR code. Once uploaded to the server, these are projected onto the walls and ceilings, alongside the other virtual sea creatures.

Reliability is Key

Panasonic’s 3-Chip DLP™ projectors are known for exceptional durability, delivering up to 20,000 hours of maintenance-free use. Their filter-less design and hermetically sealed, dust-proof optical systems reduce the chance of the ingress of foreign materials. This is ideal for venues such as churches, where the presence of dust is commonplace. This gives PROJEKTIL complete peace-of-mind that projectors can continue running without interruption.

Furthermore, Panasonic’s 3-Chip DLP™ projectors feature powered wide-range lens shift capabilities, and 360-degree installation capability – crucial for installation and calibration in tight and difficult-to-reach spaces.

A New Lease of Life

Due to the unique features of the Temple des Pâquis, PROJEKTIL used simulation software to visualise projection angles before installation. In a church not originally designed for immersive experiences, PROJEKTIL had to circumnavigate existing features and obstacles – such as the church’s altar and pillars – to position the projectors in a way that would deliver stunning 4K visuals, without any fear of visitors casting shadows.

All projection mapping and subsequent calibration of Panasonic’s projectors were done by hand. PROJEKTIL also used NFC technology to connect each projector, which was instrumental in simplifying setup, operation, and maintenance of each unit throughout the Temple des Pâquis.

The Power of Immersive Experiences

In the evenings, the Temple des Pâquis is transformed into an immersive audiovisual experience of timeless music from Mozart’s opera, The Magic Flute. Using the same Panasonic projectors as the Pixel Zoo Ocean installation and part of PROJEKTIL’s EONARIUM Tour, Mozart Melodies blends Mozart’s music with visual art to transport the audience into a world inspired by 18th-century classical opera.

Whist PROJEKTIL’s Pixel Zoo Ocean immersive experience has concluded, it will return to the Temple des Pâquis in October 2025 to present the Pixel Zoo Jungle installation, an exploration of different animals and their environments.

Pixel Zoo™ Shows by PROJEKTIL EONARIUM 360°-projection shows by PROJEKTIL

"Panasonic projectors have become an essential part of our technology toolkit. Their easy-to-use, reliable, and high-quality projectors can be relied on time after time, enabling us to focus our attention on developing new experiences without having to worry about the tools behind the scenes."

Europe’s Largest Digital Aquarium Brought to Life by PROJEKTIL and Panasonic

Challenge

Solution

Creating Europe’s Largest Digital Aquarium

Reliability is Key

A New Lease of Life

The Power of Immersive Experiences

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