LEDs

Daylight Display capability
LEDs have revolutionised both lighting and display technology because of their long life, high efficiency and small size, but also because they are extremely bright. These advantages mean that multiple LEDs can be used in media facade components to form displays that are potentially prominent even in daylight and reliable enough to be economically maintainable during the lifetime of architectural structures.

For practical purposes, daylight use is often not relevant because the discontinuous nature of building features susceptible to LED treatment makes LED media facades much more effective in twilight and night time use; and this also greatly increases display reliability and life expectancy. The high light output of very small LEDs also makes such display fixtures for twilight use very compact and visually non-intrusive to architecture.

The fusion of architecture and display
Most LED facade displays already implemented have been constructed using surface modules applied to the building structure. As a result they are often invasive features when not in use. This is acceptable in applications such as billboards or advertising displays which operate 24 hours each day but even then, spaces located behind the display are completely obscured and cannot be used as living or office spaces.

mediafacade.net is concerned with the development of on-invasive display components that integrate visually with the architecture when not illuminated, but which are also bright enough to form prominent media facades when lit and which are reliable and cost-effective to maintain during the entire life of the building.

Variable Pixel Separation
Due the increased brightness of new LED technologies it is now possible to increase the distance between pixel centres and still achieve prominent displays and integrated imagery when viewed from greater distances in the environment. This flexibility of brightness and pitch greatly improves the visual and technical integration of display elements with building components.

Increased capability of image generation - the computing systems used to convert imagery for use on the facade and to distribute it to the LED display components, also means that the pixel pitch (the separation of each LED light source) can be varied to suit architectural features while still maintaining uniform image display.