Drexel University Westphal College Deploys Scalable Display for VR and Immersive Media Programs

Immersive media enables people to interact with virtual content in ways that static video never could — stepping into an environment, engaging with it as though it were physical. Over the past several years, immersive technology has gained significant traction in entertainment, broadcast production, and higher education through mixed reality and LED volume stages. But the cost of LED wall infrastructure has made entry prohibitive for many institutions.

Drexel University's Westphal College of Media Arts and Design launched one of the first accredited virtual reality and immersive media programs in the United States. In 2018, Drexel's Animation, Capture and Effects Lab — known as the ACE-Lab — began offering immersive media programming covering augmented reality, virtual reality, and other interactive experiences. The program has since grown into a nationally recognized leader in immersive media education.

In early 2021, Drexel introduced new immersive media technology to deepen students' hands-on experience — and chose projection over LED to do it.

"The typical immersive media environment is incredibly expensive," said Nicholas Jushchyshyn, Program Director of VR and Immersive Media at Drexel University Westphal College. "It requires multiple high-quality displays and it can be challenging for an academic institution, small organization, or independent producer to justify the investment. We wanted to utilize projection, rather than LED walls, to create a cost-effective solution. We worked with Scalable to create a high-quality solution for creating an immersive media environment, without the cost of LED displays."

The solution centers on a 10-foot wide by 12-foot tall projection surface — an existing screen already on-site — illuminated by two synchronized laser projectors. The projectors are stacked and calibrated using Scalable's software to produce a single, seamless image at the brightness and uniformity of a traditional LED video wall, without the hardware cost.

"The talent has traditional studio lights on them, but they're not overexposed and the projection background can be pure white," Jushchyshyn explained. "This is the result of two laser projectors that are synchronized, calibrated, warped and overlapped. It creates the same intensity from a traditional LED video wall, but it's from two projectors. Scalable enabled us to take two laser projectors and stack the projections with a perfect overlay."

The ACE-Lab serves not just the immersive media program, but also animation, visual effects, and digital design programs — so flexibility was critical. The entire system was designed around a mobile cart, allowing projectors to be relocated as different programs require.

"For us, there were many advantages to utilizing projection instead of LED displays," Jushchyshyn noted. "Not only is it far less expensive, but it's incredibly flexible if we want to utilize it in a different location. The space we're using for production is a multipurpose space. We have designed the entire system on a mobile cart. We can retain the versatility of the room by being able to relocate the projectors."

Scalable's one-touch automatic calibration makes relocating the system practical. Rather than spending hours re-aligning projectors manually after each move, a new calibration can be triggered immediately after repositioning.

"Scalable's one-touch calibration is incredibly intuitive," said Jushchyshyn. "Their automatic calibration outputs text-based files with the calibration result. Once the calibration is completed, it's effectively saved onto the GPU. It's fully transparent to any software that's running on the operating systems. By allowing the data to be saved internally to the GPU, it eliminates nearly all latency and any complexity on higher levels of software."

The system is also designed with future expansion in mind. The current setup covers a 12-foot wall, but the architecture supports adding additional projection surfaces side by side with Scalable handling the overlap blend.

"A secondary advantage of this particular approach is the future-proof design," Jushchyshyn added. "We are currently utilizing a 12-foot wall, but we can add another wall in the future and create a full projection surface across a larger space. Utilizing Scalable's software, we can project side-by-side and have an overlap blend between the images."

The result was a high-quality, cost-effective immersive media environment that has become a core production resource for multiple programs across Westphal College — demonstrating that academic institutions can deliver professional-grade immersive experiences without LED wall budgets.