In one of the most impressive demonstrations yet of the company’s ability to produce consistent, high-performance, immersive imaging for 24/7 applications, Norway’s projectiondesign has supplied 48 of its F22 DLP® projectors to the world’s largest offshore training simulator.
As soon as the simulation starts, you are convinced not only that you are surrounded by water but that the water is actually moving and that you are moving with it.
Joel A Mills, OSC design director
The simulator is located in Perth, Australia, and was built by Offshore Simulator Center AS (OSC) of Aalesund, Norway. The facility is owned and operated by Farstad Shipping, a leading supplier of support services to the international oil industry, and was opened in December by the Norwegian prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg. The Perth project is the company’s most ambitious installation to date, as OSC’s design director, Joel A Mills MSc MNID, explains:
“The Perth installation simulates two large, 360-degree bridges. Personnel using the simulator appear to be on the bridge of a vessel, operating controls for large-scale mechanical hardware such as winches and working in conjunction with other bridge personnel and rig cranes. The emphasis is on teamwork rather than individual tuition. When we train, we train the entire crew of a vessel together, because if something goes wrong in a ship’s engine room, for example, it affects what happens on deck. It also allows us to involve more than one vessel and various crew roles.
“Rather than using a few large, powerful projectors, our requirement is for a large number of relatively small devices that can nonetheless deliver very high-performance imaging over a short throw distance. The F22 is perfect in this respect – bright, consistent, rugged and reliable.”
At the Perth simulation centre, the 48 projectiondesign F22s are used in WUXGA resolution, their images seamlessly blended together to produce a full 360-degree image that is some 7 metres high and 15 metres in diameter. Mills describes the screen shape as ‘half a teacup’ and reveals that it incorporates similar technology to that used in IMAX cinemas.
“The visual simulation aspect of the system is fully integrated with the hardware on the ‘bridge’, which is all Rolls-Royce marine equipment and which behaves exactly as it would if you were really at sea,” Mills continues. “As soon as the simulation starts, you are convinced not only that you are surrounded by water but that the water is actually moving and that you are moving with it.
“A lot can happen when you are servicing an oil-rig in a remote, offshore location, especially if the weather is bad. So the simulator gives us the opportunity to re-create those adverse weather conditions. As the waves grow larger, the movement of the vessels within the 3D environment is mathematically and physically resolved so that their response is exactly as you would expect to find in the real world.”
Commenting on this landmark project, Anders Løkke, International Marketing Director, projectiondesign, says: “We’ve had an excellent working relationship with OSC for many years, and each project they bring us into seems to be more ambitious than the last. Their need for total consistency in terms of brightness, optics and colour matching is a reflection of the mission-critical nature of their work, and we are delighted to be their preferred supplier of visual solutions.
“It’s important to remember that simulators such as this latest huge project in Australia have the potential not just to save their operators money but, in the case of hazardous offshore environments, to save human lives as well.”
A joint venture of Farstad Shipping, Rolls-Royce Marine, Aalesund University and Marintek Trondheim, OSC was formed in 2004 with the specific aim of developing training centres that could accurately simulate the complex manoeuvres associated with repositioning oil rigs, positioning anchors, and the loading and offloading of rig cargo.
Tags: simulation, Perth, shipping, F22, offshore
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