SOLUTIONS: GSK SHOPPER SCIENCE LAB, BRENTFORD 51
distance from the shopper. When the shopper touches the screen to select a product, the displayed image immediately zooms in on the pack – calling up the product shot from a database on the fly. “There is also a practical limitation [on image resolution] when generating the images in
feeds from fixed cameras in all the research areas can be viewed; additionally, live recordings can be paused, rewound and annotated.
Bespoke wall solution A projection solution was chosen for reasons of brightness, but, says Parkin, “We tried to buy what we wanted on the market,
and IT installation – one network, with everything running digitally – audio, video, data visualisations, consumer monitoring over CCTV – all streamed into an IP-based control, editing and storage package, Milestone. There were certainly some challenges around that – audio and video arrive at different times once you
specifications which Insight had to meet. While it’s most apparent in the collaboration room, the entire building was conceived a wire-free environment – using Clickshare, Sharp Big Pad and iPad applications for control and interaction with everything. However, says Cook, a DVI/DisplayPort cable was put in one location at the insistence of Neil Hartstone of GSK, as a safeguard against any audio-video sync issues with the wireless kit.
On the audio side, Visual
Acuity recommended QSC’s Q-Sys DSP system, and Cook and his team found themselves in agreement with this choice. “There were going to be audio racks
Eye tracking glasses are used to help understand shoppers’ unconscious behaviour in a store environment
August 2014
The 10,000sqft Lab has been designed to be brand-neutral, so that visiting shoppers do not know they are visiting a GSK facility
products in front of the viewer and a display behind the pharmacist. “To be able to read the
barcodes and labels on the products, we did a whole lot of work with the client setting up pack photos and then projecting them, and then came to the conclusion that we needed 42 pixels per inch for the display,” says Blair Parkin, managing director of audiovisual consultancy Visual Acuity, which was responsible for the conceptual design of the Lab. This resolution may sound low, but it is sufficient given that the display is representing a supermarket shelf some
real time on the computer and then displaying them.” It’s important that the
screen does respond in real time, explains Parkin. “Some of the participants are wearing an eye tracker so you can see how they interact with the shelf visually – what they look at first, how they approach it and so on. If the graphics are not linked in real time, then all those readings are potentially affected.” The facility also uses
bespoke skin and facial biometric tools to detect shoppers’ unconscious reactions – which makes it important to have a good camera system. In the research control room,
but no-one would do it.” Therefore a project management approach was required. Display wall manufacturer Cyviz was responsible for the display element (projectiondesign projectors) and organised the manufacturing of the screen, and Visual Acuity “got everyone to play nicely” to ensure that the touch element, by U-Touch, was integrated. “Then the touchscreen has to behave as an input device for the real-time graphics computer, and this was done by Red Dot Square.” Another noteworthy aspect of the project, says Parkin, is that “it’s a truly networked-based AV
digitise them. It’s easy to manage because everything flies around the building on the network, but it was tough to synchronise.” The majority of the AV design and installation was carried out by integrator Insight Presentation Systems, led by technical director Mathew Cook. It was Insight’s job, he says, to take the conceptual designs created by Visual Acuity and turn them into full project designs. In some areas of the project, the consultant suggested particular products, but more generally it gave performance
and amplifiers in the various different public areas of the Lab, and they needed to be connected by a network. There simply wasn’t the budget to commission a bespoke audio network with specialist switches — we needed to be able to have the audio management platform simply ‘see’ all of the audio infrastructure by connecting it to the existing AV network. Q-Sys allowed us to do that.”
Project verdicts Cook reflects: “Overall the project went very, very well.” That’s not to say that
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