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2001 ILDA Awards

Presented in November 2001 at an online webcast (no Conference due to 9/11 attack)
Webcast hosted and produced by Lighting Systems Design Inc. in Orlando, Florida

The International Laser Display Association's (ILDA) annual awards for artistic and technical excellence--the laser display industry's equivalent of Hollywood's Oscars--this year honored more than a dozen companies from around the world. The eleven artistic award categories covered virtually all aspects of modern laser displays, from the production of huge outdoor shows to the creation of individual graphic frames.

ILDA's Fenning Awards for technical achievement recognized two major breakthroughs with a First-place tie. Pangolin Laser Systems of Orlando received First Place for a new software "plug-in" that allows artists to create laser shows directly from the popular 3D Studio Max program, a high-end software package widely used by computer graphics artists. When it comes to projecting those images, laser artists can take advantage of the Schneider Showlaser, the first high-powered white-light laser that is completely solid-state. Audio-Visual Imagineering (AVI) of Orlando and Schneider Laser Technologies of Turkheim, Germany, jointly received the First-Place award for the Showlaser, which produces 10-watts of color-balanced white-light yet runs off a standard 220-volt outlet.

ILDA's winning artistic entries covered a broad spectrum of display applications that pushed technological and creative limits. Lightspeed Design Group of Bellevue, Wash., stretched the limits of display technology for its Sea World animation with 80K scanning at 30 frames per second. Laser Force, Inc., of Milwaukee, Wisc., took honors for a hand-drawn 430-frame animation sequence depicting a traditional Native American dance. LaserAnimation Sollinger of Berlin strived to visually convey an operatic aria with soft and subtle laser graphics. The wild, irregular sounds of a percussive bongo performance were brought to light with kinetic beams by LOBO electronic of Aalen, Germany.

The highest number of awards received by any single company was six, an honor shared by Audio Visual Imagineering, Laser Force, Inc., LaserAnimation Sollinger, and LOBO electronic. The highest number of First Place awards went to LOBO electronic, which took top honors in the ISP (ILDA Standard Projector) Beam Module, Beams/Atmospherics, Graphic Module and Indoor Show categories. LOBO was followed by Chicago's Strictly FX, which took first place in the ISP Computer Animation, ISP Graphic Module, and the ISP Graphic and Beam Module categories.

Due to the cancellation of this year's ILDA conference (originally scheduled Nov. 11-14 in Orlando), the results of the awards competition were presented in the Nov. issue of The Laserist, ILDA's quarterly print publication and at ILDA's Web site.

2001 ARTISTIC AWARDS

ILDA Standard Projector (ISP) Beam Module

1st:   "Movement", LOBO electronic
2nd:  "The Bongo Show", LaserAnimation Sollinger
3rd:   "Operation Blade", LaserAnimation Sollinger

 ISP Cel Animation

1st:   "Franky's Night Out", Audio Visual Imagineering
2nd:  "Indian Dance", Laser Force
3rd:   "Dolphin", LOBO electronic
Honorable Mention:  "Pegasus Morphs Into a Jet", Laser Force

ISP Computer Animation

1st:   "Wolf Head", Strictly FX
2nd:  "Homero", Lightspeed Design Group
3rd:   "Pangolin ID", Pangolin Laser Systems
Honorable Mention:  "Metamorphosis", LaserAnimation Sollinger
Honorable Mention:  "Sea World", Lightspeed Design Group

 ISP Graphic Module

1st:   "LaVida Loca", Strictly FX
2nd:  "Belle Nuit", LaserAnimation Sollinger
3rd (tie):  "Dead Man's Party", Audio Visual Imagineering
3rd (tie):  "One More Time", Strictly FX
Honorable Mention: "Rhapsody in Balloon", Laser Force

ISP Graphic and Beam Module

1st:   "Carol of the Bells", Strictly FX
2nd:  "Digital Get Down", Audio Visual Imagineering
3rd:   "Music", Audio Visual Imagineering
Honorable Mention:  "MicroManiac", Laser Spectacles

 Beams/Atmospherics

1st:   "Living Drums", LOBO electronic
2nd (tie):  "Classglass", LDS Light Design
2nd (tie):  "Aurora", LOBO electronic

Abstract

1st:   "Fight Song, Laser Fantasy International
2nd:  "New Year's Day", Audio Visual Imagineering

Graphic Module

1st:   "LOBO 2001", LOBO electronic
2nd:  "The Sunshine Show", LaserAnimation Sollinger
3rd:   "Love at First Kiss", Audio Visual Imagineering
Honorable Mention:  "Spain: Rockin' Gypsies", Laser Fantasy International
Honorable Mention:  "Help", Laser Force
Honorable Mention:  "Fatal Destiny", Laser Force

Indoor Show

1st:   "Ostwurttemberg-Show", LOBO electronic
2nd:  "Proxi", HB Laserkomponenten
3rd:   "Citroen C5 Presentation", Laser Entertainment

Outdoor Show

1st:   "Nam June Paik's Laser Art at Seoul Olympic Park", Sam Laser Display
2nd:  "Mattel Pre-Toy Fair 2000", Laser Force

Special Application

1st:   "Pacless", LaserAnimation Sollinger

 

2001 TECHNICAL AWARDS

Judges: Marc Gringas, Steve Heminover, Greg Hughes

Fenning Award for Technical Achievement

1st (tie):  "Schneider Showlaser", Audio Visual Imagineering and Schneider Laser Technologies

A solid-state, full-color laser that produces 10 watts of white-light power yet runs off a standard 220 volt outlet. The system’s high laser power is combined with other features: long lifetime, low power consumption and minimal cooling requirements. The Showlaser is the first high-powered solid-state laser to feature red, green and blue wavelengths and to offer a modulated, color-balanced palette designed for display purposes

1st (tie):  "Lasershow Converter Max", Pangolin Laser Systems

A “plug-in” that works seamlessly with 3D Studio Max to render laser frames that are faithful to the images created in the computer graphics program. Complex camera movements, character animations, and inverse kinematics—elements rarely found in laser shows but common in computer graphics—are captured by LCMax and instantly rendered in laser light.

2nd:  "ScanMaster2 Laser Projector Control Board", Dirk Apitz

The ScanMaster2 connects an entire laser projection system to a client computer via standard Ethernet using TCP/IP. The board itself can be mounted in a projector, a standalone adapter box, or a recording/playback system. It comes with fully implemented ISP inputs, outputs and inputs for galvo positioning and monitoring, 8 color outputs and several I/Os connected to a 100MHz DSP with open source firmware. The system is powerful enough to do real-time interpolation of vectors and curves, geometric and color space processing, galvo safety monitoring and zone control.

3rd:  "Lacon-5 Multimedia Workstation", LOBO electronic

The second-generation Lacon-5 multimedia laser workstation and show controller is ten times faster than its predecessor. The new Lacon-5 is based on a modular hardware structure that avoids data bottlenecks and allows for almost unlimited expansion. LOBO’s new high-resolution Scanline laser video feature can directly import video MPEG files (as well as all common bitmap file formats) and display rasterized laser output four times higher in resolution than other systems.

Honorable Mention:  "LaserMAME", lasers.org

The LaserMAME technology takes its cue from the freeware MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) software that allows modern PC’s to accurately reproduce vector-based arcade games popular in the early 1980s. But instead of playing these games on a computer monitor, LaserMAME allows the games to be played and projected in full-color laser light.

Honorable Mention:  "Beam Brush - Dynamic Filtering Projection Technique", Laser Fantasy International

A small galvo-mounted filter that can be inserted fully or partially into the path of a laser beam. The filter gives an otherwise sharp beam a soft, more diffuse look, with the degree of softness varied by how far the filter is inserted into the beam path. Because filter insertion is controlled by a rapidly moving galvo, vector points within a laser graphic can be softened on an individual basis.